An 18th-century children’s story full of coded lessons about menstruation and the patriarchy? Yes, please! Now, it may seem like a stretch to say that ‘The Purple Jar’ is a menstruation story, but hear me out. Many stories aim to teach children morality lessons – think of The Ugly Duckling or Beauty and the Beast and how you shouldn’t judge people by their appearances. But sometimes there’s more to the story than the moral that came to be associated with it. Some lessons are lost in time as the cultural climate changes, but they can give us hints about the past. In this article, we’ll explore the once widely popular 18th-century story ‘The Purple Jar’, by the Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth (1768 –1849), read by everyone from Queen Victoria to Louisa May Alcott; let’s talk about coded lessons about menstruation and gender roles.
Part 1 – A Story About Menstruation?
If you’ve never heard of this story before, this is how it goes. A young girl walks through London with her mother when she sees a beautiful purple jar in a shop window. Her mother had promised to buy her only one thing a month and, despite her shoes being worn out and uncomfortable, the girl decides to buy the jar instead of new shoes. Later, she discovers that the enchanting purple was an illusion; it was merely the liquid inside the jar that lent it the enticing colour. So, the girl was left with a plain, useless container. Meanwhile, her old shoes continue to deteriorate, causing her much trouble and regret. By the end of the story, she learns a valuable lesson about the dangers of impulsivity and the value of being pragmatic. By the way, this is just a very short summary, but if you’d like to read the full story (it’s only about 5-pages long), I’ve linked it in the description below.
So, could a closer read reveal a lesson about menstruation, puberty, and becoming a woman here? Before you think this is too far-fetched, here are some clues hinting at this menstrual theme. For starters, wombs have been compared to jars or vessels for centuries and before you go thinking – but blood isn’t purple! I’d say… are you sure? The way we think about colours changes a lot depending on cultural context. The best example of this is perhaps Homer talking of a wine-dark sea in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The poem goes:
‘And now have I put in here, as thou seest, with ship and crew, while sailing over the wine-dark sea to men of strange speech, on my way to Temese for copper; and I bear with me shining iron.’
Plus, many medical texts discussed different shades of menstrual blood and what they might indicate, including ‘purple’. And people in the past have very much read the story this way, and I’ll explore that in a minute. But just look at this Victorian painting of the story, by Henry Tonks. Doesn’t the jar look like a womb, wider at the top, with a narrow cylinder beneath it? And take a look at the colour of the liquid inside it. I can’t help but see a uterus here.
Credit: Henry Tonks (Public Domain)
Another important thing: when the girl in the story is walking with her mother, she spots the purple jar, which she hopes to fill with flowers, not at a flower shop, but at a chemist’s window – a pharmacy, hinting at the medical aspect of the story. (And ‘disease of women’ was one of the ways people referred to menstruation back then.) When the girl says she’d like to buy many items, the mother argues that she will only buy one thing, and the girl will have to wait a whole month until she’s allowed anything else – so you get the idea of monthly cycles. Later, when the purple jar is delivered, it is filled with a sticky dark liquid, which ‘smells disagreeably’, hinting at menstrual blood.
There’s much more in terms of language – and here, as 21st-century readers, much can go over our heads, as the meanings of words change, especially slang. For instance, the main character is called Rosamond and roses – and ‘flowers’ in general, were an euphemism for menstruation. Walking through London, before seeing the jar, all the things Rosamond wishes to buy are also euphemisms with sexual meanings: roses (meaning menstruation), boxes (box was slang for the female genitals), and buckles (buckle was a euphemism for marriage). She longs for ‘beautiful roses’ and seems disappointed when her mother isn’t seduced by them. What about the shoes that she could buy instead? Are they just ‘shoes’? Well, in 1796, when the story was written, ‘shoes’ was a different way of spelling ‘shows’ – which meant period blood. But there’s more to it. This also hints at the idea of reproduction – old shoes had long been thrown at newlyweds as a way of wishing fertility on the couple. ‘Sole’ was also slang for unmarried people – and the shoemaker the mother and daughter meet in the story is called Mr Sole – and his workshop makes the girl very uncomfortable indeed, with the leathery, masculine smell. Plus, in the writing, there’s a repetition of words like ‘use’ throughout the story – which could just mean to ‘utilise’ something, but it also mean ‘to have sex with’ – again highlighting a connection with womanhood and sex.
Ok so, if you accept that all these signs point to the world of menstruation, and it’s not just that gender historians are seeing coded messages everywhere, what does the story tell us about it? What’s the moral of the story? What was going on at the time?
Part 2 – The Cultural Context
The history of menstruation is closely connected to the history of female education and medicine in general. When the Purple Jar story came out, menstruation, with its moral and medical implications, was being widely discussed in medical circles. But, although menstruation was studied and discussed by physicians in the 18th and 19th centuries, not to mention midwives, menstruation was still very much a taboo subject among most people in this period. And that includes within families. Mothers were expected to teach their daughters about their bodies, menstruation, and sex, preparing their daughters for their future lives as wives and mothers. Yet this was not always straightforward. In 18th and 19th-century books about girls’ education, ‘sensitive’ topics like these were not often mentioned, and there were few tips on how to teach girls about their bodies.
Although to be fair, some do say that mothers should do so at the ‘appropriate time’, so that the girl isn’t shocked when she does get her first period, which I don’t think is particularly helpful advice. And of course, ‘unpleasant’ surprises must have happened. Much later, in Stephen King’s Carrie (and yes, I am a Stephen King fan), she never learns about her body before getting her first period even though she’s a teenager, and she’s frightened when she notices the blood, which makes her classmates bully her even more. Going back to the 19th century, you can see how the story could hint at anxiety about periods. Not only from the girls, who are curious or intrigued, but also from the mothers, who might be deeply uncomfortable talking about periods. Very often, the mothers themselves hadn’t been taught or instructed properly, and it’s hard for us to imagine the shame and embarrassment that came with the topic of periods. Of course, advice and knowledge did circulate orally through informal networks – think of female friends and relatives, midwives and herb women. But for many mothers, talking about menstruation with their daughters might be something they would try to put off for as long as they could. And when they did teach their daughters, they would likely talk not only about hygiene and reproduction but also about the very fact that menstruation was a subject that they shouldn’t discuss openly. It was an unpleasant affair best kept quiet. When Rosamond asks about the jar, her mother says: ‘perhaps, if you were to see it nearer, if you were to examine it, you might be disappointed’. Is there a hint of malice here?
After all, the way we think of medicine and the human body is always shaped by our culture. Menstruation had long been believed to hold the key to understanding the female body, and the ever-mysterious womb. Many doctors believed that menstrual blood tended to be different from regular blood. It was often darker and thicker (remember how the liquid in the jar was described as black or purple), and it had a stronger smell. Again, the girl describes the liquid as smelling ‘disagreeably’. There were some outlandish and misogynistic ideas going on in medicine at the time, such as irregular menstruation potentially being a sign of immorality, as it could be affected by the woman’s sex life and even her thoughts. The 18th and even more so, the 19th century, was also a time of colonialism, when the British Empire was stretching its dominium over foreign peoples. ‘Scientific’ racism was a big thing, including in ‘educated’ circles. The idea that women in hotter, more ‘savage’ climates would menstruate earlier than their more ‘civilised’ European counterparts, who had their periods later, is just an example of that. Early menstruation was seen as a sign of sexual desire developing earlier – and it’s hard to overstress just how horrific were the consequences of this idea, especially for marginalised and racialised women and girls living under colonial rule. But why am I talking about colonialism, you might be wondering?
Well, while Rosamond’s fate is inescapable – she will grow to menstruate, like virtually all teenage girls – and eventually become a wife and mother herself, there’s something out of place here. And this is crucial: the story states that she’s only 7 years old. Rosamond shouldn’t be thinking about all this just yet, it’s too early. Even worse, it’s improper. Because, keep in mind, it was believed that menstruation started approximately at the same time as sexual desire was starting to develop, too. Asking about periods too early might indicate she’s trying to grow up too quickly. Could that be why Rosamond’s mother is annoyed and embarrassed? Again, keep in mind that the ‘cure’ for excessive desire – and menstruating at a young age could be a sign of that – was marriage and motherhood. (By the way, if you’re intrigued or outright angry at the misogyny here, may I suggest you check out my video on green sickness, in which I go deeper into these ideas.)
Ok but, keeping in mind all of these themes and the context in which the story was written and read, what’s the moral here, as this is clearly a story meant to teach a lesson? How did readers understand this tale, and what did they think of it?
Part 3 – What’s the Moral of the Story?
The Purple Jar is no fairy tale. In the 19th century, both in Britain and in the US, it was lauded by educators because of its realism and widely read in schools and beyond. As a young princess, it is believed that Queen Victoria read it. It was understood as a tale about learning to control your desires and make sensible, pragmatic choices, or suffer the consequences. In Rosamond’s case, not only is she disappointed in the jar, but she also must keep wearing the uncomfortable shoes and, in the end of the story, her father refuses to let her leave the house because of her appearance wearing the shoes. Readers and critics discussed whether the girl’s desire for the purple jar meant she wasn’t virtuous, and the mother’s reaction was widely debated.
It’s hard not to feel bad for poor Rosamond. She says to her mother: ‘You can’t think how these [shoes] hurt me; I believe I’d better have the new shoes – but yet, that purple flower-pot!’ And her mother replies… ‘you might be disappointed’. When the jar is delivered and the girl finds out about its true nature, she says: ‘But there’s something dark in it; it smells very disagreeably; what is it? I didn’t want this black stuff.’ Her mother is indifferent, if not irritated at the girl, and this is her advice: ‘the best thing is, to bear your disappointment with good humour’. As a reader, are we supposed to be frustrated at the 7-year-old for having been fooled or at the mother, for allowing her to buy it in the first place and having no empathy? In the 19th century and beyond, many female readers saw the mother character as cruel. Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, has the character Rose in the 1875 Eight Cousins say that Rosamond’s mother was unfair, as she knew what the jar was really like. Later, Maria Edgeworth’s biographer, Emily Lawless, wrote: ‘I hate, I simply detest that mother of Rosamond’. It’s easy to see how familiar the relationship between Rosamond and her mother would have felt to 19th-century female readers.
They would have understood the story’s focus on morality and cleanliness, and the issue of speaking about the unspeakable. Female readers in particular responded to the coded subject of menstruation and learning about your fate as a girl. Both Ursala Bethell and Elizabeth Gaskell cited the story, and in both cases, they connected it to something that flows, like menstruation. However, this tale can be read as a commentary about the way menstruation is (or isn’t) talked about. If you’re thinking of capitalism, consumerism, and learning how to manage resources, this is a story about learning the value of useful objects over pretty ones. If we’re reading the story through the lens of menstruation, the moral of the story could be that a young girl should wait to learn about unpleasant yet unavoidable things. And that is a lesson very much in line with what books like the 1809 Female Friend advised. Girls ought to be clean and neat, and behave properly; they shouldn’t talk about sex – and that included menstruation.
Ultimately, the two lessons could be combined for a more complete reading of the story. By the end of the tale, the girl is disenchanted; she loses her romantic ideals about beauty for beauty’s sake, as becoming a woman and growing up is about usefulness and utility more than it is about beauty. Maybe the moral of the story is that there is pain in learning too soon about the facts of life; young girls should delay learning about ‘disagreeable’ things until later, when they are a necessary kind of knowledge.
Final Thoughts
The Purple Jar was one of the most widely read and discussed children’s stories in the English-speaking world until well into the 20th century, and appeared in many children’s anthologies. It is one of the best examples of moral and didactic stories for children, which were hugely popular until the First World War. And that makes sense. The writer, Maria Edgeworth, knew a lot about raising children, as her father married 4 times and she was deeply involved in educating all of his 21 – yes, I said 21! – children. And yet it has been largely forgotten. By the way, do let me know in the comments if you knew this story growing up – I only read it as an adult, and I don’t think most Brazilians would have read it as children either.
But why was it so popular? Why did this story resonate with so many, and why were female readers so angry? For a story that is just four or five pages long, there’s a lot of symbolism packed in this tale, if you choose to see it, just like in fairy tales. You can, of course, read it as a tale of the Industrial Revolution, meant to teach readers about the marketplace and consumerism. You can read it as a parable of frustrated desire, and how you should prioritise utility over beauty. Reading the story with menstruation in mind doesn’t invalidate these readings, it just adds an extra layer to them, which can add meaning to the story and perhaps partially explain its popularity. In that case, the story isn’t really about menstruation, but about how we talk about it and what living in a girl or woman’s body means. There’s the relationship between a young girl and her family, especially her mother, as she learns about what will be expected of her as a woman. There’s much about menstrual taboos, and the moral, medical, and colonial discourses about menstruation. There’s a link between learning about sex and womanhood in a patriarchal society. There’s disappointment, not so much at a bodily function, but what it means in terms of gender roles. And the one potential ally, the mother, shows no sympathy and gives no comfort. She has already gone through what Rosamond will, and she’s resigned, as she implies the girl must do the same. In this interpretation, Rosamond’s disenchantment and sadness may come from her discovery that sexual difference works as a way to contain and restrict women. Culture, society, medicine, and morality all come together to diminish female agency and power. And in this reading, how could the girl not be heartbroken?
Now, I’m not the first one to say all of this and, if you’re interested, I do recommend going through the references and reading recommendations below. In any case, I would love to hear your thoughts. Did you know this story, and if so, had you ever read it and interpreted it this way? I’m curious to hear what you think. In any case, if you’re still here, thank you so much for watching. I would also be very grateful if you considered supporting my work on Patreon by becoming a patron. It truly does make a difference. Thank you and see you next time!
SUPPORT MY WORK:
References
William Alcott, The Young Wife; or, Duties of Woman in the Marriage Relation (1837).
Lydia Maria Francis Child, The Mother’s Book (1831).
Maria Edgeworth, ‘The Purple Jar’ (1796), in From Instruction to Delight: An Anthology of Children’s Literature to 1850, ed. by P. Demers and G. Moyles (1982).
F.L., The Female Friend; or The Duties of Christian Virgins (1809).
Further Reading
Marilyn Butler, Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography (1978).
Jane Donawerth, Rhetorical Theory By Women Before 1900 (2002).
Emily Lawless, Maria Edgeworth (1904).
Alexandra Lord, ‘The Great Arcana of the Deity: Menstruation and Menstrual Disorders in Eighteenth-Century British Medical Thought’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 73 (1999), pp. 38-63.
Mary Jane Lupton, Menstruation & Psychoanalysis (1993).
Julia Martins, Flowers, CEMS KCL (2021).
Hollis Robbins, A Menstrual Lesson for Girls: Maria Edgeworth’s ‘The Purple Jar'”, in Menstruation A Cultural History, ed. by Andrew Shail and Gillian Howie (2005).
