In the seventeenth century, in 'Bengal', menstruating women were not allowed to do what?

They were not allowed to enter the groves where betel leaves (paan) were grown.

The correct answer is Option 2 - They were not allowed to enter the groves where betel leaves (paan) were grown.

Option 1- They were not allowed to touch the plough or the potter’s wheel is ASSOCIATED WITH WESTERN INDIA, not Bengal.

Option 2-  They were not allowed to enter the groves where betel leaves (paan) were grown is correct about the practices in Bengal.

Option 3- They were not allowed to enter the groves where bananas were grown is an incorrect statement.

Women in Agrarian Society (Medieval India):

In many different societies, the production process often involves men and women performing certain specified roles. Women and men had to work shoulder-to-shoulder in the fields. Men tilled and ploughed, while women sowed, weeded, threshed and winnowed the harvest. With the growth of nucleated villages and expansion in individuated peasant farming, which characterised medieval Indian agriculture, the basis of production was the labour and resources of the entire household. Naturally, gendered segregation between the home (for women) and the world (for men) was not possible in this context.

Nonetheless, biases related to women’s biological functions did continue. Menstruating women, for instance, were not allowed to touch the plough or the potter’s wheel in western India or enter the groves where betel leaves (paan) were grown in Bengal.

Artisanal tasks such as spinning yarn, sifting and kneading clay for pottery, and embroidery were among the many aspects of production dependent on female labour. The more commercialised the product, the greater the demand for women’s labour to produce it. In fact, peasant and artisan women worked not only in the fields but even went to the houses of their employers or to the markets if necessary. Women were considered an important resource in agrarian society also because they were child bearers in a society dependent on labour.