We talk with Dr. Shai Secunda about the Babylonian rabbis’ science of blood, breaking taboos through sex education, and menstruation as a cure for rabies.

Today, taboos about menstruation keep thousands of girls from attending school. For Jewish sages in late antique Persia, such beliefs led to laws that required women to stay away from their husbands during their periods and to wash at prescribed times. (Whether women followed these laws is another question!) Blood could pollute, yet it could also purify. And practices around menstruation may have helped religious communities define their identity. 

Access transcript and episode show notes: www.womenwhowentbefore.com/episodes/bad-blood

Women Who Went Before is written, produced, and edited by Rebekah Haigh and Emily Chesley.

Podcast theme music is composed and produced by Moses Sun.

This podcast is sponsored by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Committtee for the Study of Late Antiquity at Princeton University.

Views expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individuals, and do not represent Princeton University.