Paper short abstract:

Analysing the practices regarding menarche and menstruation in Kerala, India, within and across three generations, I argue that the sense of taste is a social construction and, therefore, reflects and reveals the existing cultural dogmas, symbolic orders and systems of stratification in the society.

Paper long abstract:

Based on the narratives of women across three generations, I try to show how menstruation, as a gustatory experience in contemporary Kerala is different from what it was in the past. In Kerala, the different values associated with taste, revealed, informed and instructed through menarche rites, worked as behavioural directives for women till the second half of the 20th century and also initiated women into a gender-determined sensory order. Besides, during the time of monthly menstruation, women were taught compulsory sensory restraint through gustatory restrictions. However, in present-day, urban Kerala, satisfying the gustatory cravings during menstruation and assuaging its distressing experience by frequently introducing gustatory stimuli, seem to be a major feature of menstrual practices among women. I argue that this change was brought about by the abandonment of menarche rites by different communities owing to the social Renaissance movement that gained momentum in Kerala by the second half of the 19th century as well by the advent of certain aspects of consumer culture, the pervasiveness of technological advancements, the introduction of a modern, medical discourse of menstruation. An analysis of everyday gustatory knowledge, experiences, and practices of women regarding menstruation demonstrates a clear break from how it was in the past and thereby asserts the fact that 'taste' is understood, acquired, experienced and even attached with meanings differently, at different points of time, even in the same society. This establishes the point that gustation is not achieved by the body alone, but also is a social construction.