Allvarligt Blod - en studie av menstruation i Tanach och Talmud

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the menstrual regulations and taboos for women in early Judaism, and what purpose they had. The general and most common perception connected to corporal fluids is that they are pollutive and impure, that is an observation can be rather insufficient. The investigation is therefore trying to understand if there is anything more to the rules than that the blood is just “a matter out of place”, since menstrual blood comes from the female reproductive areas and is not comparable to other body waste. To answer my questions, I will study what the holy and authoritative texts say about menstruation and apply appropriate theories to see if I can distinguish an alternative significance connected to the female cycle. The theoretical frames of the research are Mary Douglas theory of purity and danger, Julia Kristevas thesis on the abject and Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb´s critical appraisal on theories of menstrual symbolism where the latter develops the pollution theory as well as psychoanalysis theories.