unclean two weeks
Leviticus 12:5
12:5 unclean two weeks. Another possible reason for these seemingly rigorous laws of purifying for a new mother is that the pagan nations around them are said to have had similar though much more severe regulations required of their own women. The Hebrew regulations were much gentler in comparison but were retained in this milder form in order to keep from offending these Gentile neighbors unnecessarily. At least this explanation was offered by medieval Jewish theologians.