Religion & Sex: Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development

by Chapman Cohen

It is certain, however, that this conception of woman's nature is dominant in the lower stages of culture. She is spiritually dangerous, and the principle of 'taboo' is made to cover a great many of her relations to man. In Tahiti a woman was not allowed to touch the weapons or fishing implements of men. Amongst the Todas women are not permitted to touch the cattle. If

a wife touches the food of her husband, among the Hindus, the food is unfit to be eaten. An Eskimo wife dare not eat with her husband. In New Zealand wives were not allowed to eat with the males lest their taboo should kill them. Many tribes are careful to refrain from contact with women before going to fight. They believe that this would rob them and their weapons of strength. Other practices followed by savages before going to war forbid one assuming that this abstention is due to any rational fear of dissipating their energies. Instead of conserving their strength they weaken themselves by the many privations they undergo before fighting, in order to ensure victory. Professor Frazer well says:—

"When we observe what pains these misguided savages took to unfit themselves for the business of war by abstaining from food, denying themselves rest, and lacerating their bodies, we shall probably not be disposed to attribute their practice of continence in war to a rational fear of dissipating their bodily energies by indulgence in the lusts of the flesh."[72]

The conception of woman as one heavily charged with supernatural potentialities, and, therefore, a source of danger to the community, seems to lie at the basis of the widespread belief in the religious 'uncleanness' of women. The real significance of the word 'unclean' in religious ritual has been obscured by our modern use of it in a hygienic or ethical sense. In reality it is but an illustration of the principle of 'taboo,' and 'taboo' may extend to anything, good or bad, useful or useless, hygienically clean or unclean.

The primary meaning of 'taboo,' a Polynesian word, is something that is set aside or forbidden. The field covered by this word among savage and semi-savage races is, as Robertson Smith points out, "very wide, for there is no part of life in which the savage does not feel himself surrounded by mysterious agencies and recognise the need of walking warily."[73] Anything may thus become the object of a 'taboo.' Weapons, food, animals, places, special relations of one person to another at certain times and under certain conditions. It is enough that some special or particular degree of supernatural influence is associated with the object in question. The ancient Jews, for example, in prohibiting the eating of swine's flesh, were as far as possible removed in their thought from any connection with dietetics. They were simply following the well-known savage custom that the totem of a tribe is sacred. The pig was a totem with many of the Semitic tribes, and must not, therefore, be eaten.[74] It was not an unclean animal, in the modern sense, it was a 'holy' animal. With the Syrians the dove was so holy that even to touch it made a man 'unclean' for a whole day. No North American Indian will eat of the flesh of an animal that is a tribal totem, except under grave necessity, and even then with elaborate religious ceremonies. So, "a prohibition to eat the flesh of an animal of a certain species, that has its ground not in natural loathing but in religious horror and reverence, implies that something divine is ascribed to every animal of the

species. And what seems to us to be a natural loathing often turns out, in the case of primitive peoples, to be based on a religious taboo, and to have its origin not in feelings of contemptuous disgust, but of reverential dread."[75]

The real significance of 'unclean' in connection with religious ritual is 'holy', something that partakes in a special manner of supernatural influence and therefore involves a certain danger in contact. As the writer just cited observes:—

"The acts that cause uncleanness are exactly the same which among savage nations place a man under taboo.... These acts are often involuntary, and often innocent, or even necessary to society. The savage, accordingly, imposes a taboo on a woman in childbed, or during her courses ... simply because birth and everything connected with the propagation of the species on the one, and disease and death on the other hand, seem to involve the action of supernatural agencies of a dangerous kind. If he attempts to explain, he does so by supposing that on these occasions spirits of deadly power are present; at all events the persons involved seem to him to be sources of mysterious danger, which has all the characters of an infection, and may extend to other people unless due precautions are observed.... It has nothing to do with respect for the gods, but springs from mere terror of the supernatural influences associated with the woman's physical condition."[76]

It is interesting to observe the manner in which this notion of the sacramentally 'unclean' nature of woman has affected her religious status, and by inference, her social status likewise. Among the Australians women are shut out from any part in the religious ceremonies. In the Sandwich Isles a woman's touch made a sacrifice unclean. If a Hindu woman touches a sacred image the divinity is destroyed. In Fiji women are excluded from the temples. The Papuans have the same custom. The Ainus of Japan allow a woman to prepare the sacrifice, but not to offer it. Women are excluded from many Mohammedan mosques. Among the Jews women have no part in the religious ceremonies. In the Christian Church women were excluded from the priestly office. A Council held at Auxerre at the end of the sixth century forbade women touching the Eucharist with their bare hands, and in various churches they were forbidden to approach the altar during Mass.[77] In the gospels Jesus forbids the woman to touch Him, after the resurrection, although Thomas was allowed to feel His wounds. "The Church of the Middle Ages did not hesitate to provide itself with eunuchs in order to supply cathedral choirs with the soprano tones inhering by nature in women alone."[78] The 'Churching' of women still in vogue has its origin in the same superstition that childbirth endows woman with a supernatural influence which must be removed in the interests of others. This ceremony was formerly called "The Order of the Purification of Women," and was read at the church door before the woman entered the

building. Its connection with the ideas indicated above is obvious. The Tahitian practice of excluding women from intercourse with others for two or three weeks after childbirth, with similar practices amongst uncivilised peoples all over the world, led with various modifications up to the current practice of churching. They show that in the opinion of primitive peoples "a woman at and after childbirth is pervaded by a certain dangerous influence which can infect anything and anybody she touches; so that in the interests of the community it becomes necessary to seclude her from society for a while, until the virulence of the infection has passed away, when, after submitting to certain rites of purification, she is again free to mingle with her fellows."[79] The gradual change of this ceremony, from a getting rid of a dangerous supernatural infection to returning thanks for a natural danger passed, is on all fours with what takes place in other directions in relation to religious ideas and practices.