ABSTRACT

The menopause is probably the least glamorous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo. A serious mention of menopause is usually met with uneasy silence; a sneering reference to it is usually met with relieved sniggers. In the old days women who survived long enough to attain the menopause more often accepted the challenge. Virginity is now a mere preamble or waiting room to be got out of as soon as possible; it is without significance. Old age is similarly a waiting room, where people go after life's over and wait for cancer or a stroke. Women have thus, by imitating the life condition of men, surrendered a very strong position of their own. Men are afraid of Crones, so afraid of them that their cure for virginity fails them; they know it won't work.