Cultural Concept of Purity and Impurity amongst Kalash Women

The present paper deals with the concept of purity and impurity rooted in the religion as a manijestaJion of prejudice against women on the basis of their monthly cyclical bleeding in Kalash valley district Chitral. Menstruation is a universally occurring physiological condition of every women of child bearing age. It should have been considered a normal physiological occurring as breathing, eating, drinking, urinating, defecating and reproducing. Yet it is singled out in every religion and culture as a degrading and defiling character of womanhood. It has beelf ingrained in human psychology through the concept of purity and impurity to treat a woman as a subordinate and subservient to man on the basis of her physiology. Menstruation should not be treated as a degrading or empowering condition. It symbolizes her child bearing capacity and her sexual maturity.