Mr. TKS#135,
I generally agree with your post and POV, but may be we are seeing the same problem from two different sides.
I did not live in Tamil Nadu, and I am a man. So my pov is purely from observation.
I wrote
http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/genera...panchakacham-brahmacharyam-13.html#post195056
If women wanted a rest during any period, it should be her freewill. Why should society, husband, MIL dictate it? Who can tell another person when to pray, bath, eat?
It is like saying that a sick person should be banished to "kalapani" for rest as opposed to a hospital bed. Why should the world know that she is in "period". This was more humiliation than peaceful rest.
How ever rare an animal is it would rather prefer freedom than secluded man made zoo for its confinement. So the explanation does not hold water.
Just because there is poverty among blacks in South Africa, you can justify the Apartheid imposed by whites in that country.
Two wrongs do not make it right.
The forced segregation is wrong now and was wrong then, you might call it by any other name, it is still wrong.
If a women does not declare it in public, the public has no way of knowing and treats her like a normal person, but the moment she declares it she is treated like a pariah.
in Medieval Times a women was forced to carry a scarlet letter “A,” around her neck worn by one convicted of adultery. In TB society they did not want to spend the money on that kind of an ornament for their women. Otherwise they would want women in period to have similar treatment.