Impurity after childbirth
Impurity after childbirth is a form of impurity, primarily found in Abrahamic religions, that begins after a woman has given birth.
Biblical law on impurity after childbirth
According to Leviticus 12, a woman who gives birth to a son remains impure for a week, and afterwards immerses in a body of water to purify herself. In rabbinical interpretation of Leviticus 12 any subsequent blood she sees over the next 33 days would be considered dam tahor (ritually clean blood), and that blood does not prohibit her from sexual relations with her husband. The law for a woman who gives birth to a daughter is the same, however, the durations are doubled. The mother becomes impure for 2 weeks, and after immersion, any blood she sees over the next 66 days is dam tahor.
Jewish law and practices
Within the realm of Biblical law and post-Biblical Jewish religious discourse surrounding tumah and taharah, the impurity is called in Hebrew tumat yoledet. The biblical laws of postpartum impurity no longer apply, according to rabbinic law, and a yoledet is considered impure until her flow of blood ends. Hence, Halakhah treats a yoledet (woman who gives birth) similarly to any woman with niddah status. Nonetheless, in some Jewish communities, ceremonies and a degree of seclusion were applied to postparturient women. For example, there was a Sana Yemenite custom of women visiting the mother during 4–6 weeks after childbirth. The mother would be visited in a special room in her home and she would sit in a decorated triangle box.[1]
Christian practices
In the early Eastern churches, there was a practice restricting the posparturient from worship and other forms of separation (Susan K. Roll, "The Old Rite of Churching Women after Childbirth, in De Troyer. See also: Newell).[2]
Scholarly explanation
There is no scholarly consensus for the Biblical law, including the difference between the birth of sons and daughters. Tikva Frymer-Kensky suggested that "like the person who touched death, the person who has experienced birth has been at the boundaries of life/non-life...." (p. 401)
Other rationales include moments of crisis or danger, fear of demons, health, and a lack of wholeness. See Milgrom .
For an attempt at a scientific explanation (re: toxicity of post-puerperal blood) at the duration of the impurity, with attention to related impurity practices in other cultures with differential treatment by newborn gender (e.g., Cich Indians and aboriginal groups in Egypt and Central Africa), see Macht.
References
- Cooper, Alan. "A Medieval Jewish Version of Original Sin: Ephraim of Luntshits on Leviticus 12." Harvard Theological Review 97, no. 4 (2004): 445-459.
- De Troyer, Kristin, ed. Wholly woman, holy blood: A feminist critique of purity and impurity. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003.
- Goldberg, Harvey E. Jewish passages: cycles of Jewish life. Univ of California Press, 2003.
- Magonet, Jonathan. "‘But If It Is a Girl, She Is Unclean for Twice Seven Days...’: The Riddle of Leviticus 12: 5." Reading Leviticus: A Conversation with Mary Douglas (1996): 144-52.
- Newell, Rachel C. "The thanksgiving of women after childbirth: a blessing in disguise." Exploring the Dirty Side of Women’s Health. London, New York (2007): 44-59.
- Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Pollution, Purification, and Purgation in Biblical Israel,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of D. N. Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday (ed. C. L. Meyers and M. O’Connor; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 399–414