‘Women Grieve to Thinke They Must Be Old’: Representations of Menopause

Abstract

The physiological function of menstruation ends at menopause. Menopause was not a transition in the early modern period because it did not mark a key cultural status change, but it was seen as part of the ageing process, and as the end of fertility. The term ‘menopause’, as was explained in Chapter 1, was not in use at this time, but this transition was generally referred to as the end of the ‘flowers’, ‘courses’, or ‘terms’, according to the individual author’s preference. Menopause also has some of the characteristics of transitional bleeding, however, as it often does not end in an orderly way but instead is marked by episodes of flooding and absence in many cases. The letters of Brilliana, Lady Harley, discussed in Chapter 4, certainly demonstrate a pattern of menstrual cycles which may indicate that around the age of 40 she had entered the perimenopausal stage, which is characterised by such changes.¹ One early modern physician explained, ‘Nature is always so kind to let [women] know’ by means of irregular or changed patterns of menstrual bleeding that these cycles were coming to an end.² In this work, the author referred to the irregularity of the end of menses as a time when women found ‘their Courses dodging them’.³ This kind of phrasing is presumably what led to menopause being euphemised as ‘the dodging time’, in the eighteenth century.