Archaic Christianity

I stayed home from work yesterday due to illness and continue to do the same today. I managed to keep busy, but only with activities that involved sitting. On top of some (English) reading yesterday I was able to make it through three more chapters of the Protoevangelium of James. I'll begin my chapter 9 reading this morning.

Since we're still only dealing with Mary at this point, all I have for you is girl stuff. I found this interesting idiom yesterday and couldn't find it in my LXX. If anyone else has seen this elsewhere, please let me know. This is the text of 8:2:

γενομένης δὲ αὐτῆς δωδεκαετοῦς συμβούλιον ἐγένετο τῶν ἱερέων λεγόντων· ἰδοὺ Μαριὰμ γέγονε δωδεκαέτης ἐν τῷ ναῷ κυρίου· τί οὖν ποιήσωμεν αὐτήν, μήπως ἐπέλθῃ αὐτῇ τὰ γυναικῶν καὶ μιάνῃ τὸ ἁγίασμα κυρίου καὶ εἶπον τῷ ἀρχιερεῖ· σὺ ἕστηκας ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον θεοῦ· εἴσελθε καὶ πρόσευξαι περὶ αὐτῆς, καὶ ὅ ἄν φανερώσῃ σοι κύριος ὁ θεός, τοῦτο ποιήσωμεν.

...which can be translated roughly as follows:

Now when he was twelve years old, there was meeting of the priests, they said "Behold, Mary has become twelve years old in the temple of the Lord. So what will we do about her, since the things of woman will come upon her and she will defile the sanctuary of the Lord." And they said to the chief priest: "You have stood at the alter of God. Go into there and pray for her, and whatever the Lord God shows to you, we will do this."

I've also noticed that the author has a great fondness for the particle μήπως which only occurs in the LXX/GNT once in Sirach 28:26 (according to BibleWorks). I'm still trying to figure out the best way to translate that thing.

So here is the girl stuff. Anybody know of another instance where they refer to menstruation as τὰ γυναικῶν? It's an interesting circumlocution, and not surprising that it exists. At least that's what I'm assuming it means as I still have stayed away from the English translations for this text.