the time has come my little friends to talk of other things

A Woman's Curse?
Meredith F. Small



1 The Dagon society is very much shaped by the passing of menstrual periods and is a symbolic language that is very similar to the changing of the seasons or the tides or the moon. The identity's of the men will be changed and can even be forced to marry if the knows who was the first to lay with the woman after she had stopped visiting the huts. It also shows the controlling nature of these men that they need to keep tabs on anything that they can. A Woman's identity is very strongly established by the step in the menstrual cycle that they are at and the huts play a large part in showing when the women are potentially ready to conceive. it is also useful in determining who the father is if that is being disputed.
2 They reflect both by having a place that is occupied by certain people at certain times which are set by a biological time. And in their society they mark this important transition by having a symbolic task be preformed to show the group when they can soon mate.
3 Most of the menstrual taboo in this country comes mostly from any talking about the process and what is happening while it is taking place. Anything that has to do with bodily function has at least to be thought about before bringing it up in conversation without offending someone.
4 The thing that spoke to me through out this whole article was the level of increased health due to the lack of menstrual cycles. If the proposed method of birth control in the article is viable it would seem to me a direction worth pursuing and would hopefully give health benefits similar to the women in natural fertility society's.