Abstract
After examining accounts of menarche and the ways in which menstruation more generally was written about in early modern England, I will move on to examine representations of hymenal bleeding. This chapter will examine the link that was perceived to exist between the blood that was sometimes lost upon first intercourse and menstrual blood. In order to do this, it will outline early modern assumptions about the physiology of the venous system of the womb and vagina, from where this blood was thought to emanate. Hymenal bleeding is, arguably, an even more personal, intimate event than menstruation, and this has meant that there are no surviving accounts of women’s personal experiences to review. It is nevertheless revelatory to analyse and contrast the presentation of defloration and vaginal bleeding from medical works with each other and also with literary works by men and women.
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Notes
Thomas Brown, The Fourth and Last Volume of the Works of Thomas Brown, Serious and Comical, 4 vols (London: Sam Briscoe, 1715), IV, pp. 110–11.
Helkiah Crooke, Mikrokosmographia: A Description of the Body of Man (London: William Jaggard, 1615), p. 235.
Jane Sharp, The Midwives Book; or, The Whole Art of Midwifry Discovered, ed. by Elaine Hobby (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 43.
Thomas Bartholin, Bartholinus Anatomy Made from, the Precepts of his Father, and from the Observations of all Modern Anatomists, Together with his Own (London: John Streater, 1668), p. 72.
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G.E.R. Lloyd, ed., Hippocratic Writings (London: Penguin, 1983), p. 225.
Nicholas Culpeper, A Directory for Midwives; or, A Guide for Women (London: Peter Cole, 1662), p. 55.
Charles Jackson, ed., The Autobiography of Alice Thornton (London: Mitchell and Hughes, 1875), p. 83.
John Pechey A General Treatise of the Diseases of Maids, Bigbellied Women, Child-Bed-Women, and Widows (London: Henry Bonwick, 1696), p. 20.
Ira Wanen, The Household Physician (Boston, MA: Higgins, Bradley, and Dayton, 1859), p. 353.
Patricia Crawford, Blood, Bodies and Families in Early Modern England (Harlow: Pearson, 2004), p. 114.
M. J. Storey, ed., Two East A nglian Diaries 1641–1729: Isaac A rcher and William Coe (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1994), p. 115.
Denis Vairasse, The History of the Sevarites or Sevarambi (London: Henry Brome, 1675), pp. 101–2.
William Sermon, The Ladies Companion; or, The English Midwife (London: Edward Thomas, 1671), p. 5.
Hannah Woolley, The Gentlewomans Companion; or, A Guide to the Female Sex (London: Dorman Newman, 1673), p. 101.
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© 2013 Sara Read
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Read, S. (2013). ‘The Flower of Virginity’: Hymenal Bleeding and Becoming a Woman. In: Menstruation and the Female Body in Early Modern England. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137355034_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137355034_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47003-7
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