I would like to see more reasearch done on the answer given to the Menses/Moon question. I remember reading an article in a magazine a year or so ago about continuing to take birth control pills and only menstruating every 2 - 3 months or whenever the woman felt like it. It was noted that this practice would be safe because many women in African tribes naturally menstruate only 3 -4 times a year. The explanation being that the frequent menstal cycles along with the continuous decline in age of first menarche are recent developments in our industrialized society. Perhaps someone knows what I am referring to and can give a more scientific reply.
This is an interesting post, but there are two other threads on this MB about this topic. I would like to see documentation on some of the things you “read in a magazine,” such as the assertion that there are “African tribes” in which the women only menstruate 3 - 4 times a year. I have never heard that before. Anyone else?
Oh, and here’s the link to the column being discussed. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/990924.html
Please always include it when you start a new thread about a column. Thanks. Jill
In a pre-industrial society, the natural state of an adult woman was pregnant or lactating (and barefoot, but I’m not going there), and that could be the basis for whatever it is that “smiller” thinks he remembers reading.
Maybe another coincidence, but I had a girlfriend about 8 years ago who’s cycle was in synch with the moon. It was kind of eerie. Whenever I went to pick her up for a date, I could generally figure out where she was in her cycle by gazing at the moon.
Larry Wiginton
Dr.F –
I understand the point you’re trying to make here, and appreciate the tone (I am Cap’n Crude, after all) but it’s also fairly wrong. The natural state of a married woman (as long as marriage has existed) wasn’t the above; why should it be true for the ones who weren’t taken by a man?
A woman’s value was more than just her ability to squeeze out offspring and keep her hubby well-fucked. She also had more conventional work to do. Pre-industrial chicks were often smart enough to hold off her mate’s advances until she was less fertile, or she’d take certain “herbal remedies” that helped inhibit pregnancy. Add to this the fact that a lot of pregnancies ended in miscarriage, and that many women suffered injuries during birth or miscarriage that prevented them from becoming pregnant again, and we see that the good Doctor F is indulging in a bit of quackery. 
–Da Cap’n