Period. Emma Barnett

believe that menstruating women could spoil meat, as some writing in the respectable British Medical Journal in 1878 did, there’s still a hangover from that type of ‘intellectual’ discussion which saw women as being ‘dirty’ during their period.

      It is clear that religions haven’t been solely responsible for all period myths – doctors, tribe chiefs and the great thinkers of the day have all contributed their own bits of gibberish. However, all of the major faiths do still have a lot to answer for, as I found out to my surprise the year I got married.

      I was born into a Jewish family, and brought up culturally Jewish – so, big Friday night dinners, a decent level of Jewish education until the age of twelve at Sunday school and attending my fair share of Bar Mitzvahs. And despite not being particularly religious or observant, the ideal romantic situation envisaged by my family was that I would eventually find a Jewish guy.

      I always explain to people who struggle to understand why you might prefer to marry Jewish if you are Jewish but aren’t that religious, that it’s akin to wanting to marry someone from a similar background to you. That’s all. Someone who immediately gets your weird home rituals without explanation, understands your family’s quirks and with whom you have a shared history. But I should stress I probably would have also married outside of my faith too – because I believe in falling in love which is nigh on impossible to prescribe.

      On a practical level, it’s really tough to find a Jewish mate, especially in the UK where there are now fewer than 250,000 of us in total, and the only part of the community which is growing in number is the ultra-orthodox. So, finding a Jew who is similar to you in terms of religiousness and outlook (as well as the million other ingredients that go into being compatible with someone) is tricky, especially as you’re shopping in a very small store. But, somehow, I did indeed land my match and amazingly, he happened to be Jewish. A lucky bonus for me.

      When I met my husband, aged 20, I was wearing a blue Nottingham uni theatre T-shirt with my name emblazoned across the back (sexy, I know), because I’d recently been elected president and, before the journalism bug hit, I harboured dreams of acting and he was wearing stripy Birkenstocks. Also très sexy. I was in a flap and attempting to deal with a severe budget cut to the theatre’s meagre pot. Except my grasp of general maths, spreadsheets and deficits weren’t the greatest.

      My fun-loving mate, Gemma, from my politics class I occasionally attended, had told me that her friend could help – plus, he was single, good at maths and HOT. Boldly, I introduced myself to him, and after some sexy budget chat in front of the theatre’s noticeboard I found myself complimenting his Birkenstocks and asking for his number, sober, in the cold light of day.

      Long after that first encounter, he told me how bowled over he was by this forward northern woman demanding his digits. Fast forward through many dates, holidays, jobs and postal addresses, we are about to celebrate fourteen years together. And, even though it was daunting having met each other so young, at the peak of sowing our wild oats, we have stood the test of the time (even if the Birkenstocks haven’t). But why am I telling you how I met my husband? Because seven years on from that first meeting in front of the noticeboard, we were back there and something he did inadvertently led to us getting up close and personal with my period.

      I’d been invited back to Nottingham University to give a lecture to politics students about how to get into the media. My other half had merrily tagged along. It was our first weekend back in the city since we graduated, and a little tipsy on red wine after a cosy dinner, I unwittingly set up my own wedding proposal. ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to stand in front of the noticeboard on the exact spot where we met?’ I asked, excitedly half running to the very point, with him smiling and walking behind me. Five minutes later, my then boyfriend was down on one knee asking me to marry him.

      We decided to get married at a synagogue we’d recently discovered in London’s Bayswater, while renting locally. We had passed this beautiful building countless times, but being rather rubbish Jews had wrongly assumed it was a church. Finally, having made it inside on a random Saturday and been proven wrong, we fell in love with this Moorish-style temple and were charmed by the friendly local community and the brilliant rabbi, who was modern and amenable to our needs and religious crapness (my words, not his).

      Someone in the community mentioned there were people who would happily give us the low down on Jewish marriage if we wanted to hear more about the experience. Always a sucker for learning and the chance to ask questions, I signed us up.

      Now, if you were offered the chance to hear more about your faith and marriage ahead of your pending nuptials – what would you expect to learn? Perhaps some wisdom about love, sex, the wedding ceremony, family and being a single unit. I was hoping for tales of love in the Bible and to find out any kosher kissing tips (I jest. Slightly). My fiancé was just hoping to survive the experience. What percentage of that conversation would you expect to be about periods – a topic you’d never even really discussed at length or in any serious detail with your husband? 2 per cent, if that?

      Well, 75 per cent of our informal session was about periods. My period to be precise. And how ‘impure’ it made me for nearly half of every month.

      And that’s how my husband’s romantic university proposal ended up leading to one of the most memorable conversations I’ve had about my menstrual flow.

      We barely had a chance to sit down upon meeting our informal guides, before the foreign concept of niddah was brought up.

      Before my fiancé and I could exchange quizzical looks, I was invited to speak privately with the female volunteer. Finally, I thought, this was more like it. It was time for the good stuff in my girls-only chat.

      Settling into a comfy sofa, the friendly woman began what has now become known in my friendship circle as ‘the legendary period talk’. Smiling at me, she said something along the lines of: ‘Emma, when you bleed each month, you become niddah. Impure. Unclean for your husband. And this lasts until the very last drop of blood has come out of you and you have cleansed your whole self in the mikveh pool. Do you understand?’

      She then told me that, during this two-week window of time,

      I was wasn’t even allowed to touch my husband’s sleeve, or, in my favourite example, pass him a piece of steak I’d cooked for his dinner.

      As I was still digesting her words and mulling over how he was better at cooking steak than me, she began confiding the romantic and practical benefits of niddah. She told me that, like with anything in life, restraint makes something sweeter when you have it again after a while. Not touching for nearly two weeks every month meant you couldn’t wait to touch each other again, after the mikveh. And, handily, this would also be the right time in your cycle to get pregnant. Who’da thunk it? Plus, she confided, it’s sometimes nice to have a break from sex and your husband for half a month, every month.

      My softly-spoken guide sat back, pleased with her explanation of how the Orthodox Jewish way had thought of everything. And while a small part of it seemed plausible (i.e. the part about abstinence making the sexual pull stronger), I felt as if I’d fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole and was struggling to re-emerge from Wonderland.

      But the truly jaw-dropping revelation was yet to come. Before entering the mikveh pool – a pool which, I should add, you cannot enter with nail varnish on or even your hair plaited (a place my mother had religiously avoided her whole life) – I had to be completely sure that my period had finished. So how can you be 100 per cent sure, beyond your own eyes telling you that your tampon is clear and your pants are pristine?

       A kosher rag.

      Yes, you read that right. There is a special cloth you can buy to wipe yourself with so that you can double and triple check that your period has properly ended. But oh, no, no – that’s not all you can do to ensure your purity …

      If at the end of your cycle, after you’ve wiped yourself with said specially blessed rag, you are still in