Woman, and her Thirty Years’ Pilgrimage.
New York: William M. Littell, 1869. First edition? One of two editions published in 1869, the second being an American News Co. edition. We could not establish priority between the two. OCLC records two copies of this edition (Columbia, AAS). This advice book for women presents Dr. W.W. Bliss’ observations on puberty, menstruation, and pregnancy. In the present work, Bliss coins the titular “thirty-year pilgrimage,” which referred to the period in a woman’s life between menarche and menopause. In The Eternally Wounded Woman, Patricia Vertinsky writes, “The periodic draining of a woman’s energy which began at menarche and continued through multiple pregnancies was regarded by many physicians as a ‘thirty-year pilgrimage’ which disqualified women from all but the main task of maternity…Because of… menstruation and maternity, a woman was often considered to be a natural invalid for most of her adult life, lacking the strength for sustained physical or mental effort.”. Minor rubbing and fading to cloth. Foxing and toning to endpapers and first few leaves. Slight marginal toning. Faint contemporary pencil signatures to front flyleaf and some scattered contemporary pencil marginalia. A very good, tight copy. Publisher’s green cloth titled in gilt. Octavo. 415 pp. Item #17728
The present work seems to offer more insight into the beliefs and practices of Bliss and other contemporary male physicians than into actual medical fact. Bliss’ views were “typical” of male physicians in his day, and he credits the behavior and character of women almost entirely to their reproductive system (Ehrenreich & English). He writes, “Accepting, then, these views of the gigantic power and influence of the ovaries over the whole animal economy of the woman, that they are the most powerful agents in all the commotions of her system, that on them rest her intellectual standing in society, her physical perfection, and all that lends beauty to those fine and delicate contours which are constant objects of admiration…” (p. 96).
Vertinsky, Patricia. The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, Doctors and Exercise in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester UP, 1990), p. 69. Also see: Ehrenreich, Barbara and Deirdre English. For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women (Anchor Books, 2005), p. 134.
Price: $250.00