Vigil outside Belfast City Hall. November 13th, 2012

Savita Halappanavar would be alive today if her seventeen-week pregnancy had been terminated. On 21st October, she was admitted to Galway’s University Hospital suffering severe back pain, and over the coming days it became clear that her pregnancy was miscarrying. Amniotic fluid was leaking rapidly, and her cervix was fully dilated – leaving her vulnerable to deadly infection. Ms Halappanavar was left for days, in pain, given woefully inadequate treatment (antibiotics) as her health deteriorated rapidly. It was plain as day that she urgently needed to have her pregnancy terminated properly in order to save her life – but Doctors couldn’t act. She asked for a termination; she was told: “Ireland is a Catholic country”. Ms Halappanavar stated the case that she was neither Irish, nor a Catholic, but to no avail. The Doctors hands were tied, and tragically, Savita Halappanavar succumbed to infection and died on 28th October, 2012. She was just 31 years old.

On the surface, this reads like an anecdote of Medieval child-birth. I have certainly read articles likening it to this era. But this is worse. Our Medieval ancestors had no hope of saving their loved ones from the dangers of childbirth, they simply didn’t have the medical know-how. But we do, and Ms Halappanavar was left to die regardless. How could this have happened in the 21st century? Ireland is not a third world country, it isn’t being run by despot dictators, and on the surface, it is not a theocracy, under the thumb of religious zealots. The answer is more convoluted than that. It is the Irish Government, and the confusing state of the country’s abortion laws.

Twenty years ago, following the case of “X” (a teenage girl who’d become pregnant after suffering rape), the Dail were given a mandate by the people of this country to carry out terminations in limited circumstances (rape cases, and cases where the mother’s life was clearly in danger). However, since that case, successive Irish Governments have dodged enforcement and shirked the abortion issue altogether. The European Court of Human Rights have condemned the Irish Government for this very reason, precisely for their lack of clarity and refusal to act. Still, the Irish Government did nothing.

Now, here we are in 2012, and a woman has died. A death that was as predictable as it was preventable. But, it was not the Doctors who killed her, it was the Irish state with their hopelessly ambiguous abortion laws. If they had only acted to clarify the laws surrounding terminations then the Doctors at Galway University Hospital would have known where they stood in the law, and Ms Halappanavar would be alive today. It really is that simple. Instead, they (the Governments) have allowed themselves to be dominated by Catholic zealots who’d rather forsake a living, breathing human being for the sake of a ball of cells. What makes an even bigger mockery of the “pro-life” argument is that Ms Halappanavar’s pregnancy had ended, and there wasn’t even a viable foetus to save. Two deaths occurred that day, and I doubt the “pro-lifers” care a fig for either of them – they will carry on their propaganda war regardless.

However, no more are the religious zealots getting it all their own way. In the aftermath of Ms Halappanavar’s death, there has been a wave of protests and vigils across Ireland, and in Britain. Once again, the people of Ireland are demanding clarity and reform on the emotive issue of abortion before another mother’s life is taken. Surely now, the Irish Government must act? They cannot dodge this issue, they cannot ignore the voices of women crying out for fair treatment and control of their own bodies? Our ovaries are not the property of the State, and it’s time the Government stood up to the fanatics who seek to control other people’s lives. My answer to these “pro-lifers” is a simple one: if you dislike abortion, don’t have one.

I personally attended a vigil to remember Savita Halappanavar outside Belfast City Hall. I was one of a large crowd, holing placards bearing a simple picture of the deceased and a simple lit candle. There was no sloganeering, no shouting or unrest. There were numerous men as well as women; and a beautiful lamenting mantra of “Om Shanti Om” sung as a mark of respect for Ms Halappanavar’s Hindu background. But despite the atmosphere of solemn remembrance, there was a strong undercurrent of anger. Anger that a woman could die like this in Ireland. Anger that women here are not afforded the same respect and dignity that women in England are. Anger that women’s bodies are still the property of the state. The message sent out to both the Dail and the Stormont Assembley here in Northern Ireland was clear: we need reforms and we need them now. If the status quo continues, there will be more deaths, more women’s lives laid to waste because of religious bigotry.

To conclude this article, I would like to quote Ms Halappanavar’s mother who spoke about the tragic death of her daughter to Indian media: “In an attempt to save a four month old foetus, they killed my 30 year old daughter. How is that fair, you tell me?” This, I am afraid, will still be lost on the pro-life zealots who hold this country’s women to ransom.

Savita Halappanavar: killed after being denied a life saving abortion, 28th October 2012.

Over to Her …

Everyone has childhood memories about being tickled. It’s funny, annoying, it makes you laugh; it makes you cry …

My stepfather’s tickling was an attempt to make me vulnerable. Tickling me gave him an opportunity to take advantage of my inability to control what position my body was in. I soon began to dread tickling, because it led to other things.

I cannot really remember the first time he abused me. In a way, it’s as if it always happened. All of the incidents are rolled into one horrendous memory. My parents divorced before I was ten, my mother met him soon afterwards; he moved in, it began.

I didn’t really understand what it was he was doing at first. A little part of me knew it was wrong that he would interrupt my reading time with an order for me to do something, or for him to let himself into the bathroom and put his hands under the water while I was in there. It was confusing. He told me this was the way he made friends, the way he showed people love.

Of course, I didn’t stay naïve forever. I started secondary school and we started doing social and sex education. It dawned on me that he wasn’t trying to make friends with me; he was trying to take advantage of me. Still, I didn’t have the confidence to confront him about it.

Eventually I did. I asked him to stop it and leave me alone. I was beaten. So now I knew his ways; allow me to abuse you, or suffer violence instead. For a while it was a mixture of me shutting up and putting up, or asking him to stop and getting a pasting. What the hell do you do in that situation?

I told my mother. I was fourteen years old, and quite simply couldn’t take it anymore. My friendships were suffering (in that I didn’t have any left), my schoolwork was suffering, I was suffering. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I plucked up the courage to talk to my mum.

“You’re a liar.”

I was devastated. He left, but mum didn’t believe me. I heard her on the phone at night, begging him to come home, that she loved and believed him, that she knew I was telling vile lies and they could work it out. So instead, I told my school social teacher.

“You’re a liar.”

I couldn’t believe it. Had mum talked to her already? Why did everyone think I was lying? I needed someone to believe me, so spoke to my friend N. She believed me. She was the only one. We are still friends now and I will never, ever forget she was the one who believed in me. Even my father refused to believe me; his only apparent concern was that people might think I was accusing him, not Him.

I was totally lost. He came back to my mum’s house, which of course meant my suffering continued- but on a much bigger scale. My body was his. It was appalling. I started to think in a dangerous way; that this was my fault, that I deserved it, that I needed to be punished for my daring to exist. He knew now that he could get away with it, because nobody of any importance in the world believed me. Who would believe two teenage girls against a big group of adults?

It was about now that the rumours started. That I was having an affair with my stepdad, that I was a dirty tramp who would sleep with anything, even that I was the real mother of my little baby brother. With the exception of mothering my sibling, I began to believe the rumours. I was dirty, filthy, deceptive, immoral and a whore.

I left home at sixteen and ended up going down a very dark path. I got involved in drugs and alcohol, and with older men that took advantage of me. I began to cut myself and even attempted to take my own life. I was in a pit; a dark, deep pit of depression that I could see no way out of.

Then something amazing happened. I fell pregnant. This was it; this was my wake up call. I was nineteen, working a dead end job, I had a reputation as a drunk and a whore. I was so depressed I wanted to die. But still I was pregnant. I had been blessed.

It would have been easy to carry on down the path I was on. It would have been so easy to abort, or give the baby up, or carry on regardless without caring for the life inside me. But I decided to turn myself, and my life, around.

I sought help. There is a lot of counselling services out there for young people like me that had suffered abuse. I received my help. I began living in supported accommodation, with keyworkers who helped me rebuild my life. I applied to take admission to college.

Changing my path was not easy, and my recovery wasn’t quick. It took five years of counselling before I realised that nothing that had happened to me was my fault. It took just as long for me to learn how to build a stable, loving relationship based on mutual respect and trust (something I am still working on now). I am still learning that not every man in my life is a monster who wants to hurt me. But everything I have achieved in the last eight years has been positive. I do not smoke or take drugs anymore, and my alcohol consumption is minimal. I have been in a stable, loving relationship for four years (and counting!). I have re-sat my college exams and am now doing a degree at a renowned university.

I am telling you my story in the hope that you do not judge me. I hope that by reading my story, you will learn that not all victims of childhood trauma are a mess as an adult. Some of us work hard to achieve greatness. Sure, I’m 8 years older than most of my peers, but I made it in the end with a lot of knowledge and a wealth of experience. My ultimate aim though, is if you’re reading this and are suffering the way I did, seek help. It’s never too late.

Results

This entire process would obviously be a traumatic experience for any girl. For some, it leads to life-long phobia whereas it produces erotophobia (fear of sex) in others leading to a strong sexual block that might take years of therapy to overcome. Since most of these circumcisions are done informally by unqualified women, they lead to infections that could lead to serious diseases. Chronic pain, burning during urinations, bleeding and kidney problems occur quite frequently among the victims of this practise. In some cases, even diseases such as AIDS, syphilis and hepatitis are passed on to the girl children. Menstruation is sometimes delayed due to the closing of the vaginal passage and in many cases, the blood collects in the womb if the vagina is not reopened.

Religion

It is often believed that FGM is a practice in the Islam-dominated places of Africa. However, there is nothing in the religion advocating female circumcision. From a UNICEF report regarding FMG,

FGM/C is not prescribed by any religion. This is not, however, the general perception, especially regarding Islam. Although there is a theological branch of Islam that supports FGM/C of the sunna type, the Koran contains no text that requires the cutting of the female external genitalia, and it is widely accepted that the practice was current in Sudanese or Nubian populations before Islam. Moreover, the majority of Muslims around the world do not practice FGM/C. There is no evidence of the practice in Saudi Arabia and it is not found in several North African Muslim countries, including Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia

However, this has not meant that some religious leaders have not tried to use it as a means to suppress women. The Egyptian Sunni Muslim Imam Sheikh Gad el Haqq issued a fatwa in 1995 recommending the mutilation of young girls “because of mixing of the sexes at public gatherings. If the girl is not circumcised, she subjects herself to multiple causes of excitation leading her to vice and perdition in a depraved society”.

Statistics                                                               

According to the Inter Parliamentary Union, Female Genital Mutilation is practised in Australia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda as part of cultural practices. Other than these, the populations from these countries that have emigrated to other countries such as Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland continue this practice there, thus spreading FGM gradually to other countries.

An estimated 100 to 140 million girls are mutilated over the world. As we have seen, this practice was exclusive to Africa, and more particularly, Sub-Saharan Africa, but with mobile populations, it has spread to the Middle East, Asia and Europe, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Every year 3 million girls in these places face genital mutilation.

In spite of the widespread nature of FGM, only 19 African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia) have passed laws against it. A few European countries (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom) where the practice is prevalent have also legislated against it. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA also have laws against FGM.

Fight against FGM

The good news is that there is a strong fight going on against female genital mutilation by several international and local organisations. The World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF and Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) are at the forefront of this struggle against this practise that demeans women.

At the local level, individual Governments and women’s organisations help in spreading the message. In some places, even doctors contribute to the cause by engaging in discussion with pro-FGM patients. In addition, some Christian missionaries have contributed to the cause by speaking up against it and encouraging their parishes to say no to this custom.

Learn more @

Religion and FGM

Key Facts

A ritual of agony (Video)

Inter Parliamentary Union

• It is a puberty rite and marks the passage from girlhood to womanhood.

• A means of sexual control over women until they are married. By making it painful for them to have sex, they would reduce the possibility of premarital sex very effectively, if inhumanly.

• Some believe that FGM was practised on young girls to protect them from rape when they travelled long distances to fetch water or do other chores. (It protects the girls making it a more painful experience than rape usually is?)

• It was done to purify women (from what?) and make them worthy (for what?).

• It was used to distinguish aristocratic women from others. (And they went around checking?)

• It was done to protect a girl’s honour. It must be ‘locked away’ like the precious commodity it is. (Bank lockers for keeping vaginas?)

• To get them married as no man in the community would want to marry an uncircumcised woman. (Naturally, she would sleep around!)

• She would be different from the others, and hence ostracised.

• Women who don’t undergo this procedure have no control over their sexuality and likely to suffer from diseases.

The practice seems to have originated in Africa several thousand years ago, before Christianity or Islam. Circumcision is practised by all religions in certain places and seems to be more a cultural practice than a religious one. In spite of the horrors that religions often heap upon women, female genital mutilation is obviously not one of them.

One of the theories is that female circumcision was used in ancient Egypt to distinguish aristocratic women from others. There is practically nothing regarding evidence on this, but it seems to be the most accepted theories for the origin of the practice. According to the Naga-ed-Der Stelae of the First Intermediate Period by D. Dunham, there is evidence of female (and male) circumcision in Egypt since 4500 years ago and then spread to the rest of Africa gradually.

An offering which the king and Anubis, Who is Upon His Mountain, He Who is in Ut, the Lord of the Holy Land, give: An invocation-offering to the Count, Seal-Bearer of the King of Rekhyt [Lower Egypt], Sole Companion, and Lector Priest, honored with the great god, the Lord of Heaven, Uha, who says: I was one beloved of his father, favored of his mother, whom his brothers and sisters loved. When I was circumcised, together with one hundred and twenty men, and one hundred and twenty women, there was none thereof who hit out, there was none thereof who was hit, there was none thereof who scratched, there was none thereof who was scratched. I was a commoner of repute, who lived on his own property, plowed with his own span of oxen, and sailed in his own ship, and not through that which I had found in the possession of my father, honored Uha.

But this is a very hazy interpretation, and not much seems to be known about the propagation of this custom. This also does not explain how the original Australians and Peruvians also developed this same practice without much interaction between them.

A UNICEF report gives the following information on the origins of the custom.

FGM/C, like footbinding, is thought to have evolved in the context of a highly stratified empire, in which the emperor and his elite used the practice to control the fidelity of their many female consorts. With time, these practices came to be adopted by families in lower strata of society to enable their daughters to marry into higher strata. Footbinding and FGM/C eventually became essential signs of marriageability throughout the respective empires and in all but the poorest groups in society. In this way, the practices became social conventions that had to be observed if a girl was to find a husband – conventions that persisted after the original imperial conditions faded.

Oh! What a shame,
That you who drum to our ears
To revere the dignity between our legs,
Become the ones that destroy it.

                                           - Chinwe Azubuike

Female genital mutilation or FGM is a procedure by which an operation is done to the vagina of young girls for various reasons. In some cases, only their prepuce is taken off as well as their clitoris. But what is more horrific is that in many cases, this involves the sealing of the vagina by sewing together the labia minora and the labia majora, leaving just a little passage for urination and menstruation.

Now why would anyone want to inflict such horrors on their children? Yes, indeed – the same age-old reason! Sex must be a shame for women, and if it is not so, it must be made so by FGM. The result of this extremely painful, illegal (in most countries) and useless operation is that it reduces sexual feelings in a girl, and intercourse would be a pain, not a pleasure. Of course, allowing women to take pleasure from sex cannot be allowed at all. What is even worse is that this operation sometimes does not even leave them capable of performing a woman’s traditional role in society naturally, that of giving birth.

The procedure carries with it the risk of infection, bleeding and even death. The operation has been proved to be medically useless and of no advantage to the girls whatsoever in any way. But that does not seem to stop this practice. A girl who has not undergone this mutilation would be looked upon as promiscuous and frowned upon, since this procedure is believed to reduce a woman’s sexual urges.

Procedure

Girls reaching puberty or about to attain puberty are most often circumcised. Some girls are circumcised at a much younger age as the younger the girl, the lower the expenses.

Since this practice is mostly pertinent to the remote and underdeveloped areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, many of the operations are performed in a crude and unhygienic manner, adding to the risk that is already very high. According to WHO, knives, scissors, razors and even sharp pieces of glass have been used to perform this procedure.  Sharp stones are also a common tool used in Sudan, and Ethiopians use burning as part of the procedure. Fingernails are used in Gambia!

The FGM are classified in four parts, part IV being the most horrific.

• Type I, clitoridectomy, involves removing the prepuce with or without excision of part or all of the clitoris.
• Type II, excision, removes the prepuce and clitoris together with partial or total excision of the labia minora.
• Type III, infibulation, removes part or all of the external genitalia and stitches/narrows the vaginal opening. (In northwest Nigeria, infibulation is often performed after a clitoridectomy.
• Type IV, unclassified, includes all other procedures such as pricking, piercing, or incising of the clitoris and/or labia; stretching of the clitoris and/or labia; cauterisation by burning of the clitoris and surrounding tissue; scraping of tissue surrounding the vaginal orifice (angurya cuts) or cutting of the vagina (gishiri cuts); introduction of corrosive substances or herbs into the vagina to cause bleeding or for the purpose of tightening or narrowing it, and any other procedure that falls under the definition given above.

Often, these operations would be performed by local village women without the necessary qualifications. However, these women also act as midwives during birth. Anaesthesia is not used and the screaming girl is held down by other women if she protests. The wound would be kept clean by lemon juice (ouch!), ash, herbs or cowdung and the legs are sometimes bound together until it is completely healed.

Congo and Tanzania have a somewhat different procedure. The following is taken from a WHO manual for spreading awareness.

In some areas (e.g. parts of Congo and mainland Tanzania), FGM entails the pulling of the labia minora and/or clitoris over a period of about 2 to 3 weeks. The procedure is usually started by an elderly woman designated this task, who places sticks of a special type to hold the stretched genital parts so that they do not revert back to their original size. The girl is instructed to pull her genitalia every day, to stretch them further, and to add additional sticks from time to time to hold the stretched parts. Usually no more than four sticks are used, as further pulling and stretching would make the genitals unexceptionally long.

In some countries, it is the custom for the husband to tear it open during the wedding night. What is even more horrific is that if the husband leaves on a long trip, the flap is then sewn up again until he returns.

Advantages

These women had some special privileges in the form of being able to own property, not being beholden to any man in their lives, and they were legal entities in law. They received a ‘salary’ from the public funds and made holy and revered.

It was widely believed that they were able to do magic, and in one of his texts, Pliny tells us that the Vestals had such control over the city that they could even stop a fleeing slave provided he was still within the city. Their virginity was part of their strength and was believed to increase the potency of their spells.

They were worshipped as Mother Vesta, the Goddess of Fruitfulness, and were revered as it was believed they enhanced fertility in both women and cattle (I feel weird putting both in one sentence!). It is very curious since it is an anomaly for women unable to mate or produce children to be associated with fertility.

Unlike other Roman women, they were allowed to own property and make wills, and if they died intestate, then her property went to the State. She was on par with any Roman man in the rights given to her, and in some respects her rights even surpassed those of men, wherein she was not bound to obedience to any male family member. Lack of sex seems to be a minor price to pay for such independence.

Disadvantages

There were also a few disadvantages to this post. One of them was the fact that they had to remain virgins all their lives, and were not allowed to love. Any Vestal indulging in carnal pleasures was condemned to death by being burnt alive or thrown off a rock because it was seen as endangering the sanctity and safety of the Empire. Quite indicative of old times, she was guilty until proven innocent, if she was accused of being unchaste.

The death and ceremonies attached to the punishment of a Vestal Virgin who violated her vows of chastity is described by Plutarch.

The one who had soiled the vow of chastity is buried alive bear what is called the Colline Gate. Here, inside the city wall, projects a little earthen ridge for some distance … there a chamber, not a big one, is constructed with an incline from above. In this are placed a covered couch, a burning lamp, and some very small portions of life’s necessities, such as bread, a bowl of water, milk and oil, as if they acquitted themselves of the charge of destroying by hunger a life, which had been dedicated to the highest ritual services. Then the one to be punished is placed in a sedan chair. They cover it from the outside and fasten with ropes, so that not even a sound is heard, and they escort the sedan chair through public spaces. Everybody moves aside in silence, and they attend without any noise and with dire gloom. There is no spectacle more awful nor does the city experience a more abhorred day than this. When the sedan chair reaches the site, the servants untie the bindings, then, before the punishment, the high priest makes some secret prayers and stretches his hands toward the gods, he brings forth the all-together veiled one and places her on the ladder, which leads down to the chamber. Afterwards together with all the other priests, he turns away. Then, when she has descended, the ladder is pulled up and the chamber covered with earth so that the place is level with the rest of the ground.

For smaller offences, corporal punishments were often used. If the Virgins allowed the fire of Rome to be extinguished, Festus describes their punishment:

If the fire of Vesta was ever extinguished, the virtins were beaten with whips by the pontifex. It was the custom for them to drill a board of favourable wood for a very long time, a virgin then bore the fire taken from this into the ades in a bronze sieve.

It is important to remember that being a virgin was not a choice one made. It was decided by the family, the State and the priesthood when the girl was young. The burden of responsibility cannot have been easy, but it may certainly have been offset by all the benefits the system brought to them.

Learn more @:

Rome’s Vestal Virgins by Robin Lorsch Wildfang
History of the Vestal Virgins of Rome by Cato Worsfold
Vestal Virgins, Sybils and Matrons by Sarolta Takacs
From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins by Ariadne Staples
Pagan Pages

Daughter of Saturn, venerable dame,
Who dwell’st amid great fire’s eternal flame,
In thee the gods have fix’d their dwelling place,
Strong stable basis of the mortal race.

Vesta is the Latin form of the word Hestia, who was the daughter of Chronos (Time) and Rhea (Earth) in Roman legend. It is believed that the cult originated in B.C. 715 at the time of the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius. However, this is just the recorded history. The history of Vestal virgins goes back much further, possibly to the times of Romulus.

There is even a legend that Romulus sprung from the sacred fire, birthed by the union of a ‘pure’ virgin (Ilia) and the God of Mars by way of rape (!). When it was discovered that she was unable to perform her official duties due to pregnancy, she and her unborn sons were condemned to be put to death. The story of Remus and Romulus could be found here, but it is astounding that some legend has rape as a basis. Or perhaps not. Even the best of stories is often misogynist. This day came to be known as the Lupercalia and was later turned into St. Valentine’s day, reaffirming that there is nothing new under the sun.

A text from Cicero quotes:

They held, he says, that the highest and ethereal nature of heaven, that is, of fire, which by itself produced all things, was without that part of the body which contained the productive organs. Now this theory might have been suitable to Vesta if she had been called a male. For it is on this account that they esteem Vesta to be a virgin, inasmuch as fire is an inviolable element; and nothing can be born from it, since it consumes all things, whatever it has seized upon.

The belief was that there was no need for a statue of Vesta, since the fire and Vesta were one. Her depiction varied with time. On some Roman coins she was depicted with a veil, while there are also pictures of her as a beautiful woman. Both the Goddess Vesta and the Vestal Virgins had statues scattered throughout Rome, in a tribute to their importance.

Festival of Vesta

As seen in the previous post, the Vestals had a festival all to themselves. Though the date was 9^th June, the ceremonies would start on the 5^th and last until the 15^th of June. According to Propertius, “Vesta was then poor, and content with a procession of wreathed asses.” The legend behind this has to do with the protection of the virginity of Vesta. The ass brayed loudly and woke up Vesta, who then saved herself from the attentions of Priapus. In return for this help, the grateful Vesta adorned the ass with a garland made of loaves and freed it from the millstone to which these animals were often tethered.

The women had access to the inner sanctum of the temple of Vesta, which opened every year on 7^th June. On the 9^th, women started walking barefoot to the temple to make offerings of salted grain cakes and this lasted for another eight days. On 15^th June, after all the ceremonies had been conducted, the temple is swept completely, and closed again. The garbage generated was traditionally swept down into the Tiber. The donkeys were released from work and decorated with flowers.

Downfall

It was only in around 380 AD, when Christianity gained power that the worship of the Vesta and other Roman gods and goddesses were banned, following the suppression of all other religions other than Christianity, a tactic which was to continue for a few centuries in the region.  Except for around 400 temples retained to avoid a public outcry, all others were demolished. Since 376 AD, the Vestal Virgins did not receive any State support and the fires of Vesta were finally extinguished in 394 AD. Rome had fallen.

What are Vestal Virgins?

On 1^st March, the Pontifex Maximus extinguished the fire of Rome and rekindled it with the help of the Vestal Virgins in the locus intimus of the temple. This was the annual ritual designed to protect Rome.

The Vestal virgins were an order of six priestesses whose main purpose was to keep the fire in the centre of Rome burning. It was believed that this fire, if it went off, would destroy Rome. The Vestals tended to this fire and kept it burning and brought it to the temples for sacrifices or other holy rituals.

They also had other religious duties, though tending the fire was their main duty. The Vestals were connected to temples and one of their main duties was to draw and carry all the water needed for ritualistic purposes. It was also their duty to provide mola salsa (a type of salty wafer) and the salt to be sprinkled over the sacrifices. The corn for this was picked by three elder Vestals from the first harvest and an offering made of this cake was generally seen as a bloodless sacrifice, just as effective. They were invested with the care of the Palladium and other sacred objects and along with the priests, kept them safe and in good order.

Another main duty was maintain their virginity. Remaining a virgin was seen as an essential part of the sisterhood and any man who desecrated one of the Vestals was leaving himself open to a very painful death, as it meant he was attacking the sanctity of Rome. They were invited to attend State ceremonies and were usually a hallowed part of the procedure. In some of these ceremonies, and sometimes even when there were no State ceremonies, the Vestals would offer public prayers for the well-being of Rome, as part of their duties. In State processions, the Vestals came in the rear because ‘all prayer and sacrifice alike come last’.

The Vestals were expected to attend major Roman festivals as well. There was one interesting event that took place on 6^th March,  a sacrifice to the Vestals. During the Festival of Fordicidia, the Vestals burnt the calves of the sacrificial cow to purify the people.

A festival was dedicated to the Vestals on the 9^th of June.

How the system worked

Do not understand Vesta as anything other than a living flame;
You see that no bodies have been born from a flame.
Therefore, she is a virgin by right, who yields no seeds,
Nor receives them and she loves companions in virginity.

Little girls between the ages of six to ten were chosen to be trained to be the priestesses of Vesta, and once initiated into the Vesta cult, these girls remained Vestal Virgins and fulfilled their sacred duties for a tenure of 30 years. The girls were not normal girls, but children from most highly patrician families.

These girls were separated from their families and went to live in a house with the other priestesses, called the Atrium Vestae, which was located just behind the Temple of Vesta, making it easier for the virgins to fulfil their duties and go to and from the temple.

At its height, the Vestal Virgins were 18 women separated into three categories: one, the novices who learned about their duties, ceremonies and appropriate behaviour for ten years; two, the actual life of a Vesta; and three, the elders who spend ten years instructing the youngsters and maintain discipline. After this period of thirty years, the Vesta may marry and be a normal citizen, but unlike other women, will never be subject to the men in her life.

The Vestals were dressed differently in the dresses of priestesses. They wore their hair in a style that was similar to the traditional hairdo of brides on their wedding day known as sex crines.

Brides are adorned with six braids, because this was the most ancient style for them. Which indeed the Vestal Virgins also use, whose chastity for their own men / brides from others.

They used vittae, bands of cloth to tie up the hair and then covered their head with a white cloth called suffibulum. Their shoes were white and made from the skin of the animals that were often sacrificed at the temple. Much of the Vestal Virgins’ clothing and everything they did as part of their duty, depicted their sanctity.

So how was life inside a Magdalene Asylum and what was was its purpose? Ostensibly, it existed to provide shelter to and cleanse the “sins” of the women. This was done by constant prayer and constant work. These asylums in Ireland worked as laundries for the larger community, who paid to use the service. However, those who did the actual work, i.e. the “penitents” did not get to see a penny of this income. It all went to the Church. And remember, it was before the era of affordable washing machines. Each dirty cloth was brushed by hand, and hung out to dry, often in the bitter cold of the Irish winter. In addition to working in the laundry, these penitents also had to take care of the cleaning and scrubbing that went with maintaining a convent of that scale. Again, totally without pay. So what we have here is an establishment technically making use of slavery with the complicity of the Church, the Government and the community at large.

On arrival to the asylum, the new woman inmate was first given a change of clothes. From now on, she had to wear a drab, colourless outfit. The uniforms were designed like bags to take away any form or shape of the human body. Breasts poking out (as they tend to do) was a punishable crime in this place. They were bound tightly with straps to prevent any shape showing. The hair was cut off, as again the hair was a sign of temptation and vanity. The next step would be a change of name. Many inmates had their names changed in order to make them forget their real lives, and adjust to the new life. It was also just another brick in the wall of degradation and humiliation.

Brigid Young testifies with tears in her eyes, in the documentary Sex in a Cold Climate:

They would torture us. They would line us up every Saturday night, and they used to make us strip naked in front of them, and they would be standing at the bottom of the laundry and they would be laughing at us, and they would be criticising us. And if you were heavy, or fat, or whatever, they will show abuse to us. We had no privacy at all, no privacy. They enjoyed us to strip naked.

Mary Norris, who spent years shut up in a Killarney home narrates:

Sister Laurence would often wait until Friday to beat me. We used have a bath on Fridays and she would come in when I was dripping wet and beat me, because it hurt more. But I would never cry and one lay nun (a nun who entered the Order without a dowry) who was nice used to tell me to cry, because she would then stop the beating.

Some of them would even be forced to give away their children to be adopted. Sometimes there were pregnant women from whom the babies were snatched immediately after birth.

Prayer was part of life for the inmates and the nuns sometimes made them pray for five to six hours continuously on a daily basis. While many of the girls were devout Catholics and were probably used to praying of their own volition, forcing them to pray for hours on end for days together is just another kind of abuse.

Why should you let your wandering eyes,
Entice your souls to shameful sin!
Scandal and ruin are the prize
You take such fatal pains to win
Flee, sinners, flee th’unlawful bed,
Lest vengeance send you down to dwell
In the dark regions of the dead,
To feed the fiercest fire in hell.

In spite of the public outrage at different stages in its history, the institutions continued functioning because few people were willing to take the responsibility for change.  The very fact that the last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1996 (long after laundries became redundant and the laws had changed to accommodate women’s rights) is a testament to the difficulty of changing attitudes with respect to social change, and particularly with respect to women’s rights.

Learn more @:

Justice for Magdalenes

The Magdalene Story

Alliance Support Group

Film: The Magdalene Sisters

Documentary: Sex in a Cold Climate

Rebecca Lea McCarthy: Origins of the Magdalene laundries: an analytical history

Originally, in the immediate years after its founding, the Magdalene Asylums did not function as laundries. They served a different purpose; the purpose being the withdrawal of “loose” women from society. They lived in total seclusion, and were permitted no visitors. Even the windows were covered with shutters so that the women cannot even glimpse anything happening in the outside world. However, they were expected every Sunday to confess their sins to a large gathering of people. They would sing, weep and harangue themselves like performing monkeys. However, after a certain period, these women were allowed to leave. Gradually, this changed in the 1900s to a life-term imprisonment except under certain circumstances.

The first Magdalene Hospital was founded in 1758 in England by a group of men including Robert Dingley, Jonas Hanway, John Fielding, Joshua Reynolds and William Dodd for the treatment of “fallen” women. Hanway was a much travelled man who was considered a philanthropist and a social reformer. Robert Dingley was a Puritan who acted as the first treasurer to the Magdalene Hospital. William Dodd was a priest who abhorred sex in any form not sanctioned by the Catholic Church and used these penitentiaries to bring himself fame and fortune.

The aim of these men was to help reform prostitutes and help them find other professions. But it did not always work that way. Some of the women committed suicide, and others escaped from the place. The intense religious atmosphere and the forcible indoctrination in these homes may have had something to do with the failure of these women to assimilate into such an atmosphere.

A Harlot’s Progress is a series of paintings depicting the story of a fictional Moll Hackabout that showcases the attitude towards single women in the 1700s. The image below is when finally the woman who ends up prostituting herself is sent to prison.

These asylums originally were a mere fashion rage for the founders. It was an age where philanthropy was a fad, and social reform a stepping stone for fame and success. Even the infamous Duchess of Devonshire was involved in setting up one of these homes. The first house was also commended for its interior decoration and its links with the high and mighty. According to The Origins of Sex by Faramerz Dabhoiwala, William Dodd made used the Magdalen for fame and progress.

… he shamelessly exploited its sexual potential in a stream of publications, even inserting anonymous letters in the papers that purported to come from grateful penitents.

An excerpt from his sermon makes it clear how he exploited the sexual mores of the day to warn his listeners of the dangers of sex.

Oh look upon me, and see what cause thou hast to exult!
Behold these wretched tatters, which scarcely cover my diseased limbs
See, my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth with hunger and with anguish.
Oh, see me hopeless and abandoned.
Mercy, mercy, sweet father!”

So that is how a prostitute or sexually active woman must feel – like a wretched creature who cannot afford proper clothes and is diseased, poor and hungry, hopeless and abandoned. The actual situation of a woman turning to prostitution due to the poverty and hopelessness of her situation is cleverly manipulated to show them as becoming hopeless and in tatters due to prostitution.

An Historical Guide to the City of Dublin written by a G.N. Wright in 1825 describes it:

The Magdalen Asylum – is a brick building in Leeson-street, near Stephen’s street: this institution, the first of the kind in Dublin, was founded by Lady Arabella Denny, and was opened June 11, 1766. Its objects are the protection and subsequent reformation of deserted females, who having at first departed from the paths of virtue, have become disgusted with vice, and seek the means of qualifying themselves once more to associate with moral society.

Ireland in the 1960s and 70s was not prone to give many rights to its women. It was a culture of shame and this shame emanated from the actions of women. A woman was duty bound to maintain her honour and that of her family. In such cultures, honour of women is inextricably linked with her sexuality, and male control of the same.

A simple example of this control is that it was illegal for a woman or a single mother to rent a house by herself, without the protection of a father, brother or husband. Combined with this was the marriage ban law which prescribed the firing of female government employees and school teachers once they got married; a law which was lifted only in 1974! Add to this a Church, traditionally espousing women as the bearer of the burden of sin, and the Government’s collusion with the said Church, and we have a classic recipe for the wholesale abuse of women under the circumstances.

The definition of “fallen” could mean anything from looking beautiful to your mother being in a live-in relationship. All kinds of women were sent to these homes. The stories of these women were varied in so many ways, but they all ended up in the same result. Young unmarried girls getting pregnant, teenagers talking to too many guys, raped women, young beautiful orphans, parents with too many girls, “rebellious” girls, single women, daughters of single women, women in live-in relationships, were all liable to be sent to one of these homes, which had mushroomed up in UK, Australia, Canada, USA, in addition to Ireland.