Should Single Women Use the Mikveh?

Important note: This post deals with single women using the mikveh as a prelude to sexual intercourse. It does not address women using the mikveh for reasons not associated with sex, as a way of enriching their ritual life, or as a way of marking other occasions in a spiritual way. While I personally don't find things practices meaningful, I think its great if other women do and they should be encouraged. The rest of the article will deal with going to the miqweh as a practice related to sex.


Should single women engaged in a sexual relationship use the Miqweh?

Most Orthodox Rabbis say no. Some go so far as to actively bar single women and refuse them entry. Allowing them to use the Miqweh is akin to condoning sex outside of marriage.

Some more progressive orthodox Rabbis say otherwise. They reason that sexual relations while in Niddah status is an "Issur Caret", a vague but frightening concept of being "cut off," considered the most serious transgression in Judaism, more serious then premarital sex. Niddah can be erased only by miqweh immersion no matter how much time has gone by since the woman's menstrual period, so better to have the women immerse than possibly have them engage in sex without immersion. 

And then some rabbis, I imagine, reccommend deciding this on a case by case basis; perhaps their reasoning to is to determine how likely the woman is to have sex. Worst option of all in my book; as no woman should be required to consult a Rabbi if she does not wish to!

As a feminist, I would never dream of barring a woman from using a miqweh for any reason, and I'm quite glad barring so, has been declared illegal in Israel, much to the chagrin of the Rabbinate. But as a traditional Sephardi, I find myself solidly in the camp of the former, stricter Rabbis (minus the coercive aspect of course). 

Its clear to me that the more liberal Rabbis are the one's halachically in the right, but who cares? Well I did, once. I was a student in a prestigious Orthodox women's institution, I was in a relationship, hormones were ranging, and I knew the halacha, and I attempted to use the miqweh. (What happened at the end of the story is no one here's business). 

But let's face it; traditional women who are interested in miqweh use aren't doing so out of fear of being "cut off." They are doing it because they hope it will bring a divine blessing to their marriages, their health, their fertility; out of hope; not out of fear. They are doing it because their mothers and their grandmothers did it; not out of fear but out of love. 

Last but not least; they are doing it as a marital mitzva; a mitzva that sanctions and sacralizes their sexual relationship. And outside of marriage; there is no sanction. 

I believe that traditional family values are at the core of a traditional approach to religion. Today I venture that many if not most, traditional Jewish women are having sex before marriage.  Most are not ashamed. But they also value and respect the value placed on sex within marriage. What is a wedding after all; if not the communal sanction of a sexual relationship? Miqwe for non marital relationships strickes a dissonant chord, same as a wedding style celebration would. 

Halachists who see a woman having sex without having undergone the requisite ritual, as somehow more severe than premarital sex are missing the forest for the trees in my opinion. They are overly focused on technicalities, more than the actualities of day to day living. Whether or not a woman performes a private ritual is largely inconsequential in the greater scheme of things, really nobody's business, unlike the status of a relationship, which is public knowledge and of public concern, hence weddings.

But ultimately of course, it should be a woman's choice. This goal of this piece is to discuss women's values in making that choice by herself; not Rabbis.