I guess the obvious question is, do you actually ovulate that early in your cycle? The usual rhythmn method rule of "two weeks" doesn't always work if your natural cycle is greater than 28 days long. Also, if you typically bleed for more than 7 days, there's a risk that you're in the group of women that has 2 ovulations per cycle (one around the middle, one while you're bleeding).
My Hebrew is pretty nonexistent, but Leviticus tends to be pretty translatable. Looking at the chapter, are they using the same Hebrew word for "discharge" throughout? If yes, then what's the usual commentary like for the sections having to do with men's discharges and sexual discharges? The general vibe of the chapter is that the uncleanliness lasts the shortest possible amount of time for those, not the longest. I'd also look closely at the commentary on the second section, the one that covers women with irregular bleeding.
The general vibe of the chapter seems to be very much dealing with literal "uncleanliness". If you might be sick, or if you've got a condition where it's especially easy to spread disease, you're ritually unclean. You can't go to the Temple (where there are crowds), thus protecting the whole community from the risk of disease. That's why there's the emphasis on WASH DAMNIT! If you're going with the Catholic view, this would be a section where you go "huh, I think the author and God kinda got their wires crossed". The author clearly got the message that washing is to prevent disease, and that diseased people should be ritually unclean for the good of the community. He just got very confused about what is and isn't a disease, and about when washing will do any good in terms of preventing the spread of disease.
So the purpose is to prevent the spread of disease. It's very clear that for an irregular discharge, you *must* count seven days with no bleeding. And since those do tend to correlate with disease, that makes sense. And a man who has intercourse with a woman who is bleeding must have seven days of clean. I suspect what's going on with the traditional seven white days is "go above and beyond", like you see with the kosher rules. Partially it's ostentation (we're wealthy enough that we can be this overobservant), partially it's sexism (women don't matter enough to worry about losing their work). It might be interesting to see what the oldest commentaries on this section you can find are like.
no subject
My Hebrew is pretty nonexistent, but Leviticus tends to be pretty translatable. Looking at the chapter, are they using the same Hebrew word for "discharge" throughout? If yes, then what's the usual commentary like for the sections having to do with men's discharges and sexual discharges? The general vibe of the chapter is that the uncleanliness lasts the shortest possible amount of time for those, not the longest. I'd also look closely at the commentary on the second section, the one that covers women with irregular bleeding.
The general vibe of the chapter seems to be very much dealing with literal "uncleanliness". If you might be sick, or if you've got a condition where it's especially easy to spread disease, you're ritually unclean. You can't go to the Temple (where there are crowds), thus protecting the whole community from the risk of disease. That's why there's the emphasis on WASH DAMNIT! If you're going with the Catholic view, this would be a section where you go "huh, I think the author and God kinda got their wires crossed". The author clearly got the message that washing is to prevent disease, and that diseased people should be ritually unclean for the good of the community. He just got very confused about what is and isn't a disease, and about when washing will do any good in terms of preventing the spread of disease.
So the purpose is to prevent the spread of disease. It's very clear that for an irregular discharge, you *must* count seven days with no bleeding. And since those do tend to correlate with disease, that makes sense. And a man who has intercourse with a woman who is bleeding must have seven days of clean. I suspect what's going on with the traditional seven white days is "go above and beyond", like you see with the kosher rules. Partially it's ostentation (we're wealthy enough that we can be this overobservant), partially it's sexism (women don't matter enough to worry about losing their work). It might be interesting to see what the oldest commentaries on this section you can find are like.