Back To The Caves

Perhaps the most traumatic period in the life of girls in "high caste" Hindu society is the onset of menstruation. The pubescent girl, besides having to deal with unexplained changes in her body (sex education is unheard of), has to cope with isolation. Her brothers and parents suddenly begin to appear distant. In traditional families, from this point until menopause, the girl's life will be marked by monthly seclusion and "untouchability". Possibilities of self-development are suddenly restricted. The marking of menstruation, a physiological inheritance of human evolution, is a burden both accepted and suffered by countless women of South Asia..Among Hindus and Buddhists, as well as some Mediterranean cultures, women's "pollution" and "purity" are related to "shame". They have stigmatised a woman's reproductive powers. Menstruating women "pollute" everything they touch: water, food, green plants, deities, and even religious ceremonies and the saradha death observances..As soon as the girl gets her first menstruation (menarche), family members perform ceremonies to show that the girl is ready for marriage and will not belong to them in the future. In other words, the ceremonies create a barrier between themselves and their daughter or sister so that she will have minimal expectation of long-term financial support. (Most families might not do so consciously, but this is what their unquestioning acceptance of ceremonies surrounding the menarche amounts to.).When the girl discovers her condition and tells her mother or sister, she is covered with a big shawl and whisked away so that her father, brothers and uncles may not see her. If they so much as hear the young relative's voice, their lifespans are liable to be drastically reduced. Such is the fear they have of a young unknowing girl, whose only fault is to have grown up..The girl is secluded in a dark room for 7 to 22 days in the "gupha basne" ceremony — time in the cave, In my own case, I was secluded for 13 days in a "low-class" widow's home. During my seclusion, 1 was not allowed to come out from the dark room during the daytime, in order to avoid the sun and the males on the street.."Gupha basne" is a ritual attempt to protect the girl's purity by establishing a symbolic barrier between her sexuality and her male relatives. Menarche is regarded as a potentially dangerous "outbreak" of female sexuality which can only be controlled within the male-dominated structures of kinship. Such are the societal pressures to conform that the women themselves often regard the physiological function of uterine bleeding with distaste — no matter that every woman born experiences it. (Consider also that without the much maligned menstrual cycle, there would be no progeny, no sons, no lineage.).While we might be dulled by our unquestioning acceptance of tradition, there is no escape from the conclusion that the menarche ceremony and the menstruation countdown to menopause is but a one-sided patriarchal decision which declares women as "polluted" and therefore in need of "being controlled". It is the same mentality that expects the girl to be healthy yet sedentary; sexually attractive yet shy; hard working, but only within the household; productive, but only in terms of bearing children..Manjula Giri is a sociologist working for a doctorate at the City University of New York.