Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo
by Mary Douglas
…there are beliefs that each sex is a danger to the other through contact with sexual fluids. According to other beliefs, only one sex is endangered by contact with the other, usually males from females, but sometimes the reverse. Such patterns of sexual danger can be seen to express symmetry of hierarchy. It is implausible to interpret them as expressing something about the actual relation of the sexes. I suggest that many ideas about sexual dangers are better interpreted as symbols of the relation between parts of society, as mirroring designs of hierarchy or symmetry which apply in the larger social system.
…
For I believe that ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating and punishing transgressions have as their main function to impose a system on an inherently untidy experience.
page 3
Such patterns of sexual danger can be seen to express symmetry or hierarchy. It is implausible to interpret them as expressing something about the actual relation of the sexes. I suggest that many ideas about sexual dangers are better interpreted as symbols of the relation between parts of society, as mirroring designs of hierarchy or symmetry which apply in the larger social system.
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page 4
I believe that ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating and punishing transgressions have as their main function to impose system on an inherently untidy experience. It is only by exaggerating the difference between within and without, about and below, male and female, with and against, that a semblance of order is created.
page 96
In these beliefs there is a double play on inarticulateness. First there is a venture into the disordered regions of the mind. Second there is the venture beyond the confines of society. The man who comes back from these inaccessible regions brings with him a power not available to those who have stayed in the control of themselves and of society.
page 116
Bettelheim’s Symbolic Wounds is mainly an interpretation of circumcision and initiation rites. The author tries to use the set rituals of Australians and Africans to throw light on psychological phenomena. He is particularly concerned to show that psychoanalysts have over-emphasised girls’ envy of the male sex and overlooked the importance of boys’ envy of the female sex.
page 125
Here I am suggesting that when rituals express anxiety about the body’s orifices the sociological counterpart of this anxiety is a care to protect the political and cultural unity of a minority group.
page 126
Since place in the hierarchy of purity is biologically transmitted, sexual behaviour is important for preserving the purity of caste. For this reason, in higher castes, boundary pollution focusses particularly on sexuality. The caste membership of an individual is determined by his mother, for though she may have married into a higher caste, her children take their caste from her. Therefore women are the gates of entry to the caste. Female purity is carefully guarded and a woman who is known to have had sexual intercourse with a man of lower caste is brutally punished. Male sexual purity does not carry this responsibility. Hence male promiscuity is a lighter matter. A mere ritual bath is enough to cleanse a man from sexual contact with a low-caste woman. But his sexuality does not entirely escape the burden of worry which boundary pollution attaches to the body. According to Hindu belief a sacred quality inheres in semen, which should not be wasted.
page 134
The Nuer examples suggest the following ways in which pollution beliefs can uphold the moral code:
(i) When a situation is morally ill-defined, a pollution belief can provide a rule for determining post hoc whether infraction has taken place, or not.
(ii) When moral principles come into conflict, a pollution rule can reduce confusion by giving a simple focus for concern.
(iii) When action that is held to be morally wrong does not provoke moral indignation, belief in the harmful consequences of a pollution can have the effect of aggravating the seriousness of the offence, and so of marshalling public opinion on the side of the right.
(iv) When moral indignation is not reinforced by practical sanctions, pollution beliefs can provide a deterrent to wrongdoers.
page 142
For the least complaint or neglect of duty Walbiri women are beaten or speared. No blood compensation can be claimed for a wife killed by her husband, and no one has the right to intervene between husband and wife. Public opinion never reproaches the man who has violently, or even lethally, asserted his authority over his wife. Thus it is impossible for a woman to play off one man against another. However energetically they may try to seduce one another’s wives the men are in perfect accord on one point. They are agreed that they should never allow their sexual desires to give an individual woman bargaining power or scope for intrigue.
page 143
When male dominance is accepted as a central principle of social organisation and applied without inhibition and with full rights of physical coercion, beliefs in sex pollution are not likely to be highly developed. On the other hand, when the principle of male dominance is applied to the ordering of social life but is contradicted by other principles such as that of female independence, or the inherent right of women as the weaker sex to be more protected from violence than men, then sex pollution is likely to flourish.
page 145
Here the purity of women is protected as the gate of entry to the castes. The mother is the decisive parent for establishing caste membership. Through women the blood and purity of the caste is perpetuated. Therefore their sexual purity is all-important, and every possible whisper of threat to it is anticipated and barred against.
page 146
Orthodox Brahmins, who do not try to keep their patrimonial estates intact and allow their sons to marry, preserve the purity of their women by requiring girls to be married before puberty to suitable husbands.
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Southern Nayar girls are renowned in India for the sexual licence they enjoy. No permanent husband is recognised; the women live at home and have loose relationships with a wide number of men. The caste position of these women and of their children is made ritually secure by a pre-puberty rite of substitute marriage. The man who takes the part of the ritual bridegroom is himself of appropriate caste status and he provides ritual paternity for the girl’s future offspring.
page 148
The Enga belief about sex pollution suggests that sexual relations take on the character of a conflict between enemies in which the man sees himself as endangered by his sexual partner, the intrusive member of the enemy clan. There is a strongly held belief that contacts with women weaken male strength. So preoccupied are they with avoiding female contact that the fear of sexual contamination effectively reduces the amount of commerce between the sexes. Meggitt has evidence that adultery used to be unknown, and divorces practically unheard of.
page 149
If a man should marry a woman of the plains Arapesh he observes elaborate precautions to cool off her more dangerous sexuality.
‘If he marries one, he should not marry her hastily but permit her to remain about the house for several months growing accustomed to him, cooling down the possible passion of slight acquaintance and strangeness. Then he may copulate with her, and watch. Do his yams prosper? Does he find game when he goes hunting? If so, all is well. If not, let him abstain from relationship with this dangerous, oversexed woman still many more moons, lest the part of his potency, his own physical strength, the ability to feed others, which he most cherishes, should be permanently injured.’ (Mead, 1940, p. 345
page 150
If the principle of male domination is elaborated absolutely consistently, it need not necessarily contradict any other basic principles. We have mentioned two very different instances in which male dominance is applied with ruthless simplicity. But the principle runs into trouble if there is any other principle which protects women from physical control. For this gives women scope to play off one man against another, and so to confound the principle of male dominance.
page 152
I have said enough to show why Lele men should be anxious about their relations with women. Although in some contexts they thought of women as desirable treasures, they spoke of them also as worthless, worse than dogs, unmannerly, ignorant, fickle, unreliable. Socially, women were indeed all these things. They were not in the least interested in the men’s world in which they and their daughters were swapped as pawns in men’s games of prestige. They were cunning in exploiting the opportunities that came their way. If they connived, mother and daughter together could wreck any plans that they disliked. So ultimately men had to assert their vaunted dominance by charming, coaxing and flattering. There was a special wheedling tone of voice they used for women.
page 155
We have traced this Delilah complex, the belief that women weaken or betray, in various extreme forms among the New Guinea Mae Enga and among the Lele of the Congo and the Yurok Indians of California. Where it occurs we find that men’s anxieties about women’s behaviour are justified and that the situation of male/female relations is so biased that women are cast as betrayers from the start.
page 163
the yearning for rigidity is in us all. It is part of our human condition to long for hard lines and clear concepts. When we have them we have to either face the fact that some realities elude them, or else blind ourselves to the inadequacy of the concepts.
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Where sexual purity is concerned it is obvious that if it is to imply no contact between the sexes it is not only a denial of sex, but must be literally barren. It also leads to contradiction. To wish all women to be chaste at all times goes contrary to other wishes and if followed consistently leads to inconveniences of the kind to which Mae Enga men submit.
page 172
In this aspect of their culture they are a good example of the healthymindedness which William James described. For the Lele evil is not to be included in the total system of the world, but to be expunged without compromise. All evil is caused by sorcery. They can clearly visualise what reality would be like without sorcery and they continually strive to achieve it by eliminating sorcerers.
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1138127140
Purity and Danger is acknowledged as a modern masterpiece of anthropology. It is widely cited in non-anthropological works and gave rise to a body of application, rebuttal and development within anthropology. In 1995 the book was included among the Times Literary Supplement’s hundred most influential non-fiction works since WWII. Incorporating the philosophy of religion and science and a generally holistic approach to classification, Douglas demonstrates the relevance of anthropological enquiries to an audience outside her immediate academic circle. She offers an approach to understanding rules of purity by examining what is considered unclean in various cultures. She sheds light on the symbolism of what is considered clean and dirty in relation to order in secular and religious, modern and primitive life.
Dame Mary Douglas was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology.
Douglas was considered a follower of Émile Durkheim and a proponent of structuralist analysis, with a strong interest in comparative religion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_and_Danger (first published 1966) is an analysis of the concepts of ritual purity and pollution in different societies and times, and is considered a key text in social anthropology.
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