Chhaupadi: Confinement and Female Uncleanliness

Chhaupadi: Confinement and Female Uncleanliness

Chhaupadi is a social system in the western part of "Gender for Hindu women which prohibits a woman from participating in normal family activities during menstruation because they are considered impure. The women are kept out of the house and have to live in a shed. This lasts ten to eleven days when an adolescent girl has her first period and four to seven for every following one. Childbirth also results in a ten to eleven-day confinement.
<div id="toc">
<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
<ul>
<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#w_chhaupaudi-what-is-forbidden"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Chhaupaudi: What is forbidden</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#w_traditional-beliefs"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Traditional Beliefs</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#w_call-for-change"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Call for Change</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#w_references"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">References</span></a></li>
<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#w_see-also"><span class="tocnumber">5</span> <span class="toctext">See Also</span></a></li>
</ul>
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<h2 id="w_chhaupaudi-what-is-forbidden">Chhaupaudi: What is forbidden</h2>
Women are barred from consuming milk, yogurt, butter, meat, and other nutritious food. The women must survive on a diet of dry foods, salt, and rice. They cannot use warm blankets and are allowed to have only a small rug. They are also restricted from going to school or performing their daily functions like taking a bath, such that they are forced to stay in the barbaric conditions of the shed.

On the 11th day after childbirth, a mother’s confinement will end. A priest will perform a blessing, and take her child and point his head towards the sun for the first time. Then, he will throw flour and rice on her as part of the purification ritual.
<h2 id="w_traditional-beliefs">Traditional Beliefs</h2>
In an interview with the BBC, the mother-in-law of a new mother, Basanti Devi expresses the traditional beliefs that uphold the chhaupadi system.
<blockquote>"Our god will be angry if we don’t do this. She is a nursing mother so how can she cook? Everyone around here does this, so we do, too. If she eats normal food she’ll get sick."</blockquote>
A confined young mother, Padma Devi Deuba confirms that God will punish her if she takes her baby outside. If she has her period, then she is not allowed to go outside, cook or touch anyone for five days, believing it to be a sin. Some people in western Nepal think that a new mother or a menstruating woman will bring bad luck on the whole household if she stays in the main house, or even believing that she can make cow’s milk into blood.
<h2 id="w_call-for-change">Call for Change</h2>
Extreme confinement was outlawed by Nepal’s Supreme Court three years ago, but the practice remains widespread. There are more and more calls for change, from husbands as well as women who have suffered from confinement themselves.

For example, Devaki Shahi, who works for the Rural Women’s Development and Unity Centre, is campaigning for change and pushing for the sites of confinement to be cleaner and at least not shared with animas. However, traditional beliefs still hold sway: "If someone breaks the practice and her child falls ill, people say it’s because they didn’t observe chhaupadi. In one village local people destroyed some of the confinement sheds. Someone hurt his leg in the process and everyone said it was because he was doing a bad thing."

Medical practitioners are also joining the call for change, criticising the unhygienic standards of the sheds and the need of new mothers to have access to good nutrition and medical attention in case of complications.
<h2 id="w_references">References</h2>
<ul>
<li>Ghimire, Laxmi (May 2005), Unclean & Unseen, Student BMJ, http://student.bmj.com/search/pdf/05/05/sbmj206.pdf, retrieved 2008-12-03</li>
<li>Haviland, Charles. "BBC News." 4 March 2009. South Asia News. 22 July 2010 <http://news.bbc.co.uk>.</li>
<li>Time (August 2014),  <a href="http://time.com/3811181/chhaupadi-ritual-nepal/">The ‘Untouchables’: The Tradition of Chhaupadi in Nepal</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26316503">Chhaupadi Culture and Reproductive Health of Women in Nepal</a></li>
</ul>
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<h2 id="w_see-also">See Also</h2>
<ul>
<li> "Gender </li>
<li> "Gender </li>
</ul>
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