(Heb. Tohorat ha-mishpaḥah). Laws regulating sexual relations between Husband and Wife. According to these laws, couples may not engage in sexual relations during the wife's menstrual period and for seven "clean days" thereafter. During this time, it is customary for observant couples to abstain from any physical contact, including sleeping in the same bed. When the period of abstention ends, the wife immerses herself in the ritual bath (Mikveh) and it is presumed that she will reunite sexually with her husband that same night. The laws of family purity are based on Leviticus 20:18, "If a man shall lie with a woman having her period, and shall uncover her nakedness, he has laid bare her flow, and she has exposed her blood flow; both of them shall be cut off from among their people." An entire tractate of the Talmud, Niddah (i.e. menstruation), is devoted to family purity.
In modern times, it has been noted that women are usually most fertile at the time of the cycle when relations may be resumed. It has further been suggested that periodic enforced abstinence helps husband and wife strengthen the bond between them and brings freshness to their sexual relationship when contact is renewed each month. The Talmud was also aware of this aspect of things: "The husband becomes overfamiliar with his wife and tired of her, thus the Torah prohibited her to him [each month] so that she might remain as beloved to him as she was on her wedding day" (Nid. 31b). Traditionally, observance of the laws of family purity was one of the foundations of Jewish family life, but today broad sectors of the Jewish community disregard or are ignorant of these laws, although practicing Orthodox Jews still consider them fundamental.
The halakhic authorities of the Conservative movement have always maintained the importance and validity of the laws of family purity. However, all indications are that in spite of the official view of the rabbinic leadership, the laws of family purity are not generally observed by Conservative Jews. Reform Jews do not accept the halakhic requirements concerning family purity.
