Purpose
One purpose of bathing is for personal hygiene. It is a means of achieving cleanliness by washing away dirt and soil, and a preventative measure to reduce the incidence and spread of disease. It also reduces body odors.
Bathing creates a feeling of well-being and the physical appearance of cleanliness.
Bathing may also be practised for religious ritual or therapeutic purposes or as a recreational activity.
Therapeutic use of bathing includes hydrotherapy, healing, rehabilitation from injury or addiction, relaxation.
The use of a bath in religious ritual or ceremonial rites include immersion during baptism in Christianity and to achieve a state of ritual cleanliness in a mikvah in Judaism. It is referred to as Ghusl in Arabic to attain ceremonial purity (Taahir) in Islam. All major religions pay an emphasis on ceremonial purity and bathing is one of the primary means of attaining outward purity. In Hindu households, any acts of defilement are countered by undergoing a bath.
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Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?—to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing—he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)
“Our purpose in founding the city was not to make any one class in it surpassingly happy, but to make the city as a whole as happy as possible.”
—Socrates (469–399 B.C.)