Why Women Fast During Navratri And Men Once Didn’t

Every Navratri, across India, kitchens fall silent from the sound of clattering plates as women take up fasting. For nine days, they let go of food, sometimes even water, while keeping the household running and the family fed. It looks like sheer devotion, but it carries with it layers of cultural memory, philosophy, and forgotten roles. Curiously, men were never originally expected to fast with such rigor. Why was fasting largely a woman’s domain? And why has this tradition slowly changed?

Navratri is about worshipping the goddess in her fiercest, most powerful forms. Women, by their very being, were seen as her closest reflection. Their fasting was not just abstinence but a symbolic act of becoming the goddess herself-embodying discipline, patience, and strength. Men, aligned more with external roles, were seen as worshippers, not embodiments, of Shakti.

Traditionally, men were responsible for public rituals: yajnas, temple offerings, and community duties. Women were guardians of the inner sanctum: the home. Their fasting during Navratri kept the household space spiritually charged and pure. While men performed outward acts of worship, women turned the family home into a sacred temple through their self-denial.

Navratri falls during two seasonal shifts—spring and autumn—times that Ayurveda considers delicate for health. Fasting on fruits, milk, and light foods was believed to detoxify the body, especially supporting women’s reproductive and nurturing roles. It was less about punishment and more about aligning women’s health with cosmic rhythms, making them carriers of balance in both family and nature.

The goddess’s war with Mahishasura is the central story of Navratri. She fought for nine days, enduring fatigue, rage, and bloodshed. Women mirrored that sacrifice through fasting. By bearing hunger and exhaustion silently, they placed their devotion alongside the goddess’s endurance. Men, on the other hand, were expected to fight their own daily battles in society-provision, protection, and leadership, so their form of sacrifice looked different.

Historically, men were never detached from Navratri. They led the recitations of the Durga Saptashati, arranged processions, and offered financial and material support for temple festivities. Their contribution was public, external, and ritualistic. Women’s fasting, however, was intimate and personal, turning the body into an altar. This division created a complementary rhythm rather than an unequal one.

Today, fasting is no longer seen as only a woman’s duty. With urban life and spiritual democratization, men too take up Navratri fasts. Some do it as an act of discipline, others as an offering of equality. What was once divided between genders is now shared. Yet, the essence remains unchanged: fasting is about surrender, not gender; about intention, not obligation.