How did menstruation become taboo? A thread

There are over 5,000 euphemisms for the word 'period' dating back to old religious texts such as the Bible and the Quran.

“…in her menstrual impurity; she is unclean… whoever touches…shall be unclean and shall wash his clothes and and be unclean until evening” - Leviticus 15

Negative taboos around menstruation are nearly universal across human cultures and probably pre-date language itself. Some scholars in the 20th century believed that early humans found period blood to be soiling or toxic. Freud said it came from our fear of blood.

Some have theorized that taboo is a form of natural population control, limiting sexual contact with “pollution” stigma. But such ideas are themselves tied to existing societal attitudes. Menstrual blood toxicity was disproven in the late 1950s.

Bucking the trend, some of today's hunter gatherer societies believe that menstruation is powerful and healing. The Mbendjele tribe of Central Africa, for example, still uses sayings like “my biggest husband is the moon”.

One theory holds that menstrual taboos are at the center of the origins of patriarchy. A 1974 study found that taboos in a given society may form when males don't have a high participation in a certain activity, such as childbirth or child-rearing.

According to professor Christ Knight, menstrual taboos were formed due to our human ancestors's hunting behaviours. His theory examines how the length of the menstrual cycle came to match the lunar cycle.

In Knight’s model, early females gathered in isolation during the new moon and withheld sex, so that males could focus their attention on hunting. By signaling “no”, females may have established blood as being powerful, creating a strong cultural symbol.

But as time went on and game became scarce, menstrual cycles began to stagger and these females lost their collective power. The theory goes that men claimed the blood ritual for themselves and established their own exclusive huts or temples.

Of course, there are controversies around each theory, leaving many elements up to interpretation. Read more in this article https://helloclue.com/articles/culture/how-did-menstruation-become-taboo