As Gowing notes, “Much vernacular printed discussion of the female body was specifically aimed at helping women conceive. Menopause was called “the cessation of terms” or “flowers” or “courses” (Read 37). Then, as now, menopause generally arrived at age 50 but a woman was not considered old until 60 when it was certain she could no longer conceive. Laura Gowing finds that “t is still hard to recover women’s knowledge and interpretations of the body” (10), and most discussions of menopause are to be found in medical journals but not in women’s diaries or letters. In the late eighteenth century (that conduct book loving age), the “first popular guidebooks for the menopausal woman appeared, some of which were reportedly sold out in a few months” (Stolberg 412). Menopause was a rarely spoken and private subject in the eighteenth century as well.

It was an act of bravery and of generosity and a welcome opening for people to talk more publicly about their bodies.

Here at last was someone opening up in a public way about what has been considered a private milestone and offering to give advice to others in the process. When Deanna Raybourn pronounced herself a “crone” on Twitter and welcomed questions about her newly menopausal state, numerous women responded. It is also something that people do not discuss much even in 2019. Menopause in Early Modern England (and Now)Īs a 43 -year-old woman, I am finding that perimenopause, like greatness, is something that one finds thrust upon you. How did (and how do) women deal with life in their forties when their children are entering that “most interesting” and “most trying” times of their lives while they themselves are in “the most dangerous”? Are they objects of ridicule? Paragons of wisdom? Are they even visible at all? When women’s lives are divided into maid, mother, crone, it is easy to overlook the moment between early motherhood and old age. Bennet is perhaps experiencing perimenopause or menopause and the end of one stage of a woman’s life. While her daughters come of age and dance at balls and flirt with officers, Mrs.

The laughter may die into an awkward chuckle when the reader is a 40ish-year-old woman and realizes that most likely Mrs. Bennet complains of her “poor nerves” and her husband sardonically replies that he is long acquainted with them, we as readers of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are to laugh. Yale Center for British Art, Bequest of John N. Portrait of a Lady (1768), John Russell, 1745–1806, British.

Mr bennet pride and prejudice