Menstrual taboo

A menstrual taboo is any social taboo concerned with menstruation. In some societies it involves menstruation being perceived as unclean or embarrassing, extending even to the mention of menstruation both in public (in the media and advertising) and in private (amongst the friends, in the household, and with men). Many traditional religions consider menstruation ritually unclean.

Different cultures view menstruation differently. Studies in the early 1980s showed that nearly all girls in the United States believed that girls should not talk about menstruation with boys, and more than one-third of girls did not believe that it was appropriate to discuss menstruation with their fathers. The basis of many conduct norms and communication about menstruation in western industrial societies is the belief that menstruation should remain hidden.

In other societies certain menstrual taboos may be practised without the connotation of uncleanness. According to the anthropologists Buckley and Gottlieb cross-cultural study shows that, while taboos about menstruation are nearly universal, a wide range of distinct rules for conduct during menstruation "bespeak quite different, even opposite, purposes and meanings" with meanings that are "ambiguous and often multivalent".

Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas abolished all forms of ritual impurity of people and things and stressed the importance of cleanliness and spiritual purity. Menstruating women are encouraged to pray and are not required to fast; they have the (voluntary) alternative of reciting a verse instead.

Some church fathers defended the exclusion of women from ministry based on a notion of uncleanness. Others held that purity laws should be discarded as part of the Old Covenant. In spite of the restrictions in Leviticus, Jesus allowed himself to be touched by a hemorrhaging woman and cured her (Mark 5:25-34).

In the Hindu faith, menstruating women are traditionally considered ritually impure and given rules to follow. During menstruation, women are not allowed to “enter the kitchen and temples, sleep in the day-time, bathe, wear flowers, have sex, touch other males or females.” They may not mount a horse, ox, or elephant, nor may they drive a vehicle. Women themselves are seen as impure and polluted, and are often isolated as untouchables, unable to return to their family, for the length of their period. In parts of Nepal local Hindu culture dictates that women leave their home to live in a seculeded shelter during menstruation, an age old practise known as "Chhaupadi", this practise was banned by the Nepalese Supreme Court in 2005.

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