Ten Menstrual Cycle Myths

One old wives’ tale says that a woman should not touch a fruit tree while she is menstruating. She will cause the fruit on the tree to spoil. In ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder wrote in his Natural History, that bees left the hives, mares miscarried and corn in the fields withered at the touch of a menstruating woman. My Italian grandmother believed and would warn me, not to water houseplants while I was menstruating as this would somehow cause the plants to die.