Menstruation and Procreation in Early Modern France by McClive Cathy

Author:McClive, Cathy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2015-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Detecting and Proving Pregnancy

In this chapter I explore further the problems associated with menstrual regularity and the reliability of menstrual observations in the context of early modern understandings of the relationship between menstruation and procreation. I discuss the practical issues women, their medical practitioners, and jurists faced when trying to read female reproductive bodies. It was generally recognised that menstrual suppression could be a sign of pregnancy, and that the retained menses would be used to nourish the foetus, but there were exceptions. Some women bled throughout pregnancy, at times very heavily, and others became pregnant without ever having menstruated. Bleeding associated with early-term miscarriage could not easily be differentiated from menstruation. In addition, the provenance of menses was disputed. All these factors undermined the very basis of the connection between menstruation and reproduction.

Furthermore, as we began to see in the last chapter and will explore further here, the meanings ascribed to the appearance or absence of menstruation by medical practitioners, jurists and women themselves could change according to the individual’s menstrual history and specific context. Menstruation was not a stable signifier in early modern France. The body of une femme déréglée was generally harder to read than that of une femme réglée. Menstrual regularity was not merely a medical issue, however. It took on political and religious significance in the bodies of queens and aristocratic women hoping to demonstrate their physical and moral aptitude to provide heirs, and in the bodies of aspiring saints.

Menstrual regularity also concerned jurists involved in civil and criminal suits regarding pregnancy. Here, I explore further the interplay between individual menstrual time and the broader context in three different arenas: the family, medical theory and practice, and the courtroom. I will return initially to Marie-Antoinette and Angélique de Mackau’s letters, examining the difficulties they faced and demonstrating the resonance between their menstrual narratives and contemporary medical material. Strikingly, Marie-Antoinette’s and Angélique’s letters provide examples of two direct contemporaries who experienced the relationship between menstruation and conception entirely differently at a point when historians have argued that the meaning of menstruation was stabilising.1 Angélique’s testimony suggests that there was ongoing tension between menstrual norms and individual bodies which did not conform. The link between menstruation and procreation could still be uncertain, and women and their medical practitioners were fully aware of this. Detecting pregnancy for the first time was particularly difficult, although women became more experienced at reading their own bodily signs with practice, as we will see with Angélique.

Detecting pregnancy in a personal, familial context was one thing; proving conception, the duration of pregnancy and legitimacy in the more public and contentious judicial arena was quite another. For instance, in a familial context, socio-economic and marital status as well as the desire or not for pregnancy might influence how women themselves read their bodies. The uncertainty of menstrual suppression enforced a period of waiting and observing until other more visible concrete signs, such as quickening, were manifest. This could be a period of anxiety and frustration, but it was rarely a life-and-death matter.

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