Menstruation and Procreation in Early Modern France by Cathy McClive (review)

In this new monograph, Cathy McClive analyses how the relationship between menstruation and procreation has been perceived both in the early modern period and in the present. Her study addresses three key assumptions about sex, gender, and reproduction during the period 1500 to 1800, namely: that menstruation had largely negative connotations; that it was a direct signifier of womanhood; and that the relationship between menstruation and procreation was straightforward.

Existing scholarship on menstruation in the early modern period typically references the ‘menstruation as pollution’ paradigm, or highlights its role as a biological determinant. Using the case study of early modern France, the author deconstructs this myth of ‘menstrual misogyny’ and challenges the traditional gender/sex dyad. Through analysis of early modern French medical and theological works, and close readings of case studies from personal and judicial sources, McClive reveals a spectrum of both positive and negative attitudes towards this issue.

McClive’s study is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 traces the theological origins of menstruation dogma. By contextualising the relevant passages from Leviticus (Chapters 15, 18, and 20), Pliny the Elder (23–79 ce), and Aristotle (384–22 bce), we can observe what historian David Biale has termed ‘procreative theology’. It would appear that the original biblical interdiction on sex during menstruation arose solely due to anxieties that this was not an optimal time for conception. Pliny the Elder wrote that ‘coitus [with a menstruating woman was] fatal for men’ in certain circumstances, and that menstruating women had the potential to destroy crops, sour wine, and give dogs rabies (p. 31). These negative associations can be juxtaposed against what Pliny considered the therapeutic benefits of the menses, such as curing epilepsy and tumours, in addition to forming and nourishing an unborn foetus. The second section elaborates on Biale’s ‘procreative theology’ through the analysis of confessionals and medical literature. The key belief espoused in these sources was that procreation would be most successful and produce the healthiest offspring in the immediate aftermath of a menstrual evacuation, when the surface of the womb was ‘watered and stickier’ (p. 94).

Chapter 3 addresses how menstrual regularity was fundamental to perceptions of women’s health and fertile potential in early modern France. Through female narratives and medical observations, the ‘bad weeks’, ‘monthly rain’, or ‘rules’ were measured and monitored to determine what constituted menstrual norms. Such norms were employed in the alleged stigmata case of Marie-Catherine Cadière in 1730 to ascertain whether there was any concurrence of Cadière’s symptoms with her menstrual cycle. The fourth chapter analyses the early modern adage that ‘fertile trees flower before bearing fruit’ (p. 149). McClive shows that contemporaries regarded the relationship between menstruation, sexual intercourse, and conception as ambiguous. Indeed, according to prevailing early modern medical theories and judicial standards, the cessation of menses was considered insufficient proof of pregnancy.

In Chapter 5, McClive reveals how anxieties regarding paternity and inheritance rights cultivated a socio-cultural preoccupation with determining the expected length of a pregnancy. While lunar and solar months, and calculation error on the part of the expectant mother, could prolong or shorten pregnancies, early modern medical authorities considered a normal pregnancy to last between seven and eleven months.

The final chapter examines the ‘exceptional normal’, to ascertain whether menstruation was considered both sex-specific and a stable signifier of womanhood in early modern France. Using case studies of hermaphrodites and ‘bleeding’ men, McClive deconstructs the universal categories of ‘woman’, the female ‘body’, and the feminine gender, to provoke recognition of myriad bodies and challenge traditional reductive definitions of the physical body and gender. The eighteenth-century case of Michel-Anne Drouart exemplifies the fluid nature of sex and gender, and suggests that not all bodies conformed to Thomas Laqueur’s one- or two-sex models.

Was the act of menstruation sufficient to categorise a body as female? Did menstruation carry...