Intuitively, I thought that for Bhikkhus, we cannot lie down with men for more than 3 nights in a row, but for women, it’s not even a moment; that these 2 rules would be gender swapped for Bhikkhunī, that they cannot lie down with women for more than 3 nights in a row, but with men, it’s not even a moment.
Yet, when I visit the Bhikkhunī rules, I see the parallels are not expanded, or modified. That looks weird. Isn’t it supposed to be gender swapped?
Yes, a mistake indeed! Thank you both: for spotting it and then fixing it.
In fact, Bi Pc 101 should also be changed. As it stands, the rule says:
If a nun lies down more than two or three nights in the same sleeping place as a person who is not fully ordained, she commits an offense entailing confession.
But the grammatical gender of the non-ordained person is actually female, and so this should refer to a woman:
If a nun lies down more than two or three nights in the same sleeping place as a woman who is not fully ordained, she commits an offense entailing confession.
The corresponding rule for the monks has the masculine grammatical gender for the non-ordained person. But since the masculine form is the default when the gender is unknown or for mixed-gender groups, we need to render it as “person” in this case. In fact, the word commentary specifically says that “not fully ordained” means anyone apart from a bhikkhu. This leads to an asymmetry between the monks’ rule and the nuns’ parallel rule, which unfortunately is unavoidable.
