The Slow Moon Climbs: The Science, History, and Meaning of Menopause

by Susan Mattern

Overview

A surprising look at the role of menopause in human history—and why we should change the ways we think about it

Are the ways we look at menopause all wrong? Susan Mattern says yes and, in The Slow Moon Climbs, reveals just how wrong we have been. From the rainforests of Paraguay to the streets of Tokyo, Mattern draws on historical, scientific, and cultural research to show how perceptions of menopause developed from prehistory to today. Introducing new ways of understanding life beyond fertility, Mattern examines the fascinating “Grandmother Hypothesis,” looks at agricultural communities where households relied on postreproductive women for the family’s survival, and explores the emergence of menopause as a medical condition in the Western world. The Slow Moon Climbs casts menopause in the positive light it deserves—as an essential juncture and a key factor in human flourishing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691216720
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/02/2021
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	428,169
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Susan P. Mattern is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Georgia. Her many books include The Prince of Medicine and Rome and the Enemy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Prologue: The Grandmother of Us All 3

Part I Evolution

Chapter 1 Why Menopause? 17

Chapter 2 "Thank You, Grandma, for Human Nature": The Grandmother Hypothesis 40

Chapter 3 Putting the "Men" in Menopause: Male-Centered Theories of Human Evolution 68

Chapter 4 Foragers Today: Hunting, Sharing, and Super-Uncles 94

Part II History

Chapter 5 Our Long Stone Age Past: How Grandmothers (Maybe) Conquered the World 129

Chapter 6 The Age of Farmers: Patriarchy, Property, and Fertility Control 154

Chapter 7 Reproduction and Non-Reproduction in Some Agrarian Societies 187

Chapter 8 The Modern World 225

Part III Culture

Chapter 9 Women's Hell: Menopause and Modern Medicine 257

Chapter 10 What Are You Talking About? Menopause in Traditional Societies 302

Chapter 11 Symptoms 329

Chapter 12 A Cultural Syndrome? 351

Epilogue Good-Bye to All That 367

Notes 371

Bibliography 397

Index 443

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A deeply satisfying book."—T. M. Luhrmann, Times Literary Supplement

"This is a book to be savoured, slowly and with care."—Joanna Bourke, BBC History Magazine

"A refreshing and scholarly change from the mostly folksy, self-help offerings in this genre."—Anjana Ahuja, Financial Times

"A brilliantly wide-ranging study of the menopause across the centuries. . . . Mattern’s remarkable book fits perfectly into this cultural moment."—Times Higher Education

"A strong argument for embracing the menopause and treating its symptoms singly rather than bundling it into this female syndrome."—Kate Spicer, The Telegraph

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the PROSE Award in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Association of American Publishers

From the Publisher

2019-06-30
A celebration of menopause as a life stage vital to our species' survival, but one that has now been trivialized as a disease to be treated.

Mattern (History/Univ. of Georgia; The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire, 2016, etc.) begins by noting that menopause—the end of the reproductive phase of female life and the beginning of an extended period of aging—is rare outside of humans. Most female animals die within a few years of their last birth, including our primate relatives. The author elaborates on the "grandmother hypothesis." Older women are more experienced, and, freed from giving birth themselves, they can assist daughters in childbirth and child-rearing. In Paleolithic times, when roving bands survived by foraging, these elders knew where to find the good plants. They also added to the number of adults as resources as opposed to dependent children. Menopausal women continued to be important in agrarian times when families settled on farm plots and society became patriarchal, with fathers owning the land and ruling the family. There were booms and busts over that 10,000-year period, and Mattern discusses the forces that kept population levels relatively stable. Everything changed with the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern medicine, ushering in the modern era of massive population growth and lowered mortality. While menopause has been recognized as a stage of life for thousands of years, it was only in the early 18th century that the term began to incorporate negative ideas of excess blood, hysteria, irritable nerves, and so on. By the time hormones were discovered, menopause was considered an estrogen deficiency disease. The last third of the book embodies Mattern's well-argued case that menopause could be considered a "cultural syndrome": a set of symptoms, largely unclear in origin, that reflect psychological, social, and physiological factors that can create real problems and suffering.

A wise history of a subject that is "deeply…implicated in the human condition."

Kirkus Reviews