Historical novel research - Taboo no Longer: Menstruation in 19th Century England

You may wonder why I'm writing a blog on menstruation! Well, I'm revisiting and revising my historical novel Remnant, adding some drama to Joanna's storyline. Joanna Vassa, the daughter of famed abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, died of uterine disease, maybe endometriosis. It's likely she suffered from painful periods and I plan to include this in the novel...hence the research. After spending days on research, it will probably amount to a few paragraphs in the book, but the journey is worth it. 

Joanna came of age during the Regency Era in England, so designated because King George III was mentally incapacitated and his son George took over as Prince Regent from 1811-1830. Following the Regency Era was the Georgian Period, followed by the Victorian Era, from 1837-1901; Queen Victoria was one of England's longest-serving monarchs. My research hit a brick wall when searching for Regency or Georgian information on menstruation, so I had to look back to the Elizabethan Era or ahead to the Victorian Era.

In the Elizabethan Era, theories about menstruation include a necessary balancing of the four humours: pure blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. A woman's monthly bleeding would return her body to a natural, healthy balance of fluids. Beliefs that menstruating women had magical powers or that menstrual blood could cure diseases abounded. In fact, Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder wrote "that a menstruating woman could stop hail storms and lightning, as well as kill crops" (History). It was common in the Middle Ages for women to simply bleed into their clothes. I really find it hard to picture a woman walking down the street leaving behind a trail of blood!

Middle or Upper-class women were often consigned to bed rest during their monthly cycle in the Victorian Era. Charles Knowlton, who wrote Fruits of Philosophy in 1832, stated that during her menstrual cycle "the woman is said to be unwell, or out of order...dancing in warm rooms, sudden exposure to cold or wet, mental agitations should be avoided as much as possible" (Showalter 84). Men made decisions about what women could or could not do. 

Elaine Showalter points out that "scientific fact and scientific theory were being influenced by the prevailing social or ethical doctrine of women's inferiority...governed by prejudices rather than scientific truth" (Showalter 85). Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, an English physician, pushed back against the theory that women were incapacitated for one week out of every month during their period, and claimed from personal and professional experience that "the extent of female invalidism was greatly exaggerated by male doctors... and that most adult women completely disregard menstruation in relation to their normal activities" (88). 

Victorian women "used outhouses, chamber pots, or a discreet outdoor spot, [women] did not normally wear panties or other clothes that would need to be pulled down" (Freidenfelds). However, during their monthly cycle, women wore some kind of cloth or diaper, often with a belt, a precursor to the first Kotex pads with belts in the 1920s.

I was also curious about what women (and men) called the menstrual cycle in the early 19th century. In the 17th century, they referred to flowers, courses, and terms, as in "she is having her courses." Quite frequently no specific vocabulary would be used at all. Instead, someone might say "she hasn't had those for a while," or they might say she is "in the custom of women" (Reid). 

Interestingly, Natalie Joffe points out that "it was noted that some groups had a rich vocabulary for menstruation, while others had but the scantiest of terms" (Joffe). The Irish have very few words and the French employ a plethora of words, denoting not just their attitude toward menstruation but their attitude toward women's sexual health in general. Words used to denote menstruation often referred either to the monthly frequency-- that time of the month, her time, monthlies-- or the idea that women were not feeling well while menstruating--unwell, the curse. Meigs, writing in 1852, notes that "among us , it is called courses , periods , terms , monthlies , monthly sickness , unwell , times , and a variety of other names , hints , and allusions , that need not be here summed up" (Meigs).

Historical fiction novelists spend weeks, months, or even years conducting research to insure the history is accurate. Finding reliable sources for some topics is quite difficult, as I discovered when simply trying to find out what they called a "period" in 1807!

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Bibliography

Freidenfelds, Lara. "Period Drama: That Time of the Month in Victorian America." National 

Museum of Civil War Medicine. 12 February 2017 https://www.civilwarmed.org/menstruating/

Hindson, Bethan. “Attitudes Towards Menstruation and Menstrual Blood in Elizabethan England.” Journal of Social History, vol. 43, no. 1, Fall 2009, pp. 89–114. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/jsh.0.0246.

Ives, Susanna. "Tidbits on Mid-Victorian Era Menstrual Hygiene." http://susannaives.com/wordpress/2015/09/tidbits-on-mid-victorian-era-menstrual-hygiene/
Joffe, Natalie F. "The Vernacular of Menstruation," WORD, 4:3, 181-186, DOI: 10.1080/00437956.1948.11659341

Meigs, Charles Delucena. Obstetrics: The Science and the Art.

Read, Dr. Sara. Menstruation and the Female Body in Early Modern England. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Showalter, Elaine, and English Showalter. “Victorian Women and Menstruation.” Victorian Studies, vol.14, no. 1, 1970, pp. 83–89. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3826408. Accessed 22 Feb. 2021.

The History of Periods: How Women Have Dealt With Menstruation Through the Ages. https://www.knixteen.com/blogs/the-rag/the-history-of-periods. 23 May 2018