McClive - Menstruation and Procreation in Early Modern France

MENSTRUATION AND PROCREATION IN EARLY MODERN FRANCE

Women and Gender in the Early Modern World

Series Editors:

Allyson Poska, The University of Mary Washington, USA

Abby Zanger

The study of women and gender offers some of the most vital and innovative challenges to current scholarship on the early modern period. For more than a decade now, Women and Gender in the Early Modern World has served as a forum for presenting fresh ideas and original approaches to the field. Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary in scope, this Ashgate book series strives to reach beyond geographical limitations to explore the experiences of early modern women and the nature of gender in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. We welcome proposals for both single-author volumes and edited collections which expand and develop this continually evolving field of study.

Titles in the series include:

Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology

The Uses of a Sixteenth-Century Compendium

Helen King

Childbirth and the Display of Authority in Early Modern France

Lianne McTavish

Birthing Bodies in Early Modern France

Stories of Gender and Reproduction

Kirk D. Read

Hermaphrodites in Renaissance Europe

Kathleen P. Long

Intertextual Masculinity in French Renaissance Literature

Rabelais, Brantme, and the Cent nouvelles nouvelles

David P. LaGuardia

Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeares England

Caroline Bicks

CATHY MCCLIVE
Durham University, UK

ASHGATE

Cathy McClive 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Cathy McClive has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

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Ashgate Publishing Limited

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England

Ashgate Publishing Company

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

McClive, Cathy, author.

Menstruation and procreation in early modern France / by Cathy McClive.

p. cm. (Women and gender in the early modern world)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7546-6603-5 (hardcover: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4724-5380-8 (ebook) ISBN 978-1-4724-5381-5 (epub)

I. Title. II. Series: Women and gender in the early modern world.

[DNLM: 1. MenstruationFrance. 2. Reproductive BehaviorhistoryFrance. 3. History, 17th CenturyFrance. 4. History, 18th CenturyFrance. 5. History, Early Modern 14511600France. 6. TabooFrance. WP 11 GF7]

QP263

612.6620944dc23

2014035204

ISBN 9780754666035 (hbk)

ISBN 9781472453808 (ebk-PDF)

ISBN 9781472453815 (ebk-ePUB)

This book is dedicated to Paula McClive, my first history teacher

I have been gestating this book for well over 11 months and at times, it has resembled a false conception or a mole rather than a true pregnancy. During that time, I have called upon many more experienced in scholarly midwifery than myself and I am extremely grateful for their help in resisting early induction and maintaining the pregnancy to deliver at term what I hope is a healthy and robust child of the mind. Any remaining malformations are, of course, my own responsibility.

My interest in the history of the body was sparked by Lyndal Roper and Sandra Cavallo as an undergraduate. Colin Jones, Hilary Marland and Penny Roberts supervised my thesis on the perceptions of menstruation in early modern France and have provided ongoing support. Sylvie Steinberg helped me to navigate the secrets of the archives nationales and Renaud Maury was an agreeable lunch companion in the archives dpartementales du Rhne. Durham University provided me with a terms research leave and funded several trips to archives in Paris. Parts of the manuscript were rewritten during a EURIAS fellowship at the Collegium de Lyon (201112).

I am very lucky to have so many friends and colleagues who have helped me along the way. Lyndall Wallace, Patricia Cotti, Eugnie Pascal, Nicole Pellegrin, Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier, Franois-Joseph Ruggiu and Christelle Rabier provided moral support and a friendly ear. Elizabeth LEstrange, Margaret Pelling, Sandra Cavallo, Lianne McTavish, Lisa Smith, Nicole Reinhardt, Rebecca Winer, Elaine Leong and Lynn Botelho have read and commented on various chapters along the way. I was lucky enough to be part of a writing group with Lisa, Elaine and Lynn in the final stages of revisions and their honest and rigorous critique of several chapters was instrumental in helping me to refine the structure and argument of the book. Ashgates anonymous reviewer provided generous and robust suggestions for improvement. I am very grateful to Erika Gaffney, my editor at Ashgate, for her patience and support for this project. I owe perhaps the biggest debt of gratitude to Colin Jones, Ben Dodds and especially to Ludmilla Jordanova who read and commented on the entire draft. Ludmilla held my hand through the final rewrites and gave me the confidence to stop.

My parents, Paula and Andrew McClive, have provided financial and moral support for many years. My children, Lily and Arlo, who were born at various points during the completion of this book both reinforced and undermined my historical arguments about the uncertainties of pregnancy and the relationship between menstruation and procreation. My partner, Ben Dodds, provided unfailing love and support throughout, taking time away from his Spanish bandits to look after our children so that I could write and rewrite and rewrite again. I thank him for believing in me and this project when I no longer did and for helping me to bring this exceptional normal gestation to a fruitful end.