The Disparate Number of Days

In Leviticus 12, the mother is contagiously unclean for one or two weeks as unclean as she is during her menstrual period. On the eighth day, a boy had to be circumcised,. Again, but the woman remained unclean in herself, though she would no longer pollute other people at that point. And so there were all sorts of spells and incantations, things you did for children, for newborns, for mothers who had just given birthto protect them against what were viewed as supernatural invasive forces.