Wilbush J
Maturitas. 1979 Feb;1(3):145-51. doi: 10.1016/0378-5122(79)90001-x.
The prevalent assumption that climacteric disturbances appeared when the expectation of life of women assured survival past the menopause cannot be supported demographically. These disorders are largely conditioned by sociocultural factors and, therefore, may be expected to have been initiated when these factors became stressful. Historical examination shows that medicine, or its marginal practitioners, were always involved in the postponement of ageing whenever the status of women depended more on their attractiveness than other social determinants, a logical "geriatric" extension of its traditional cosmetic activities. No menopausal disturbances are however recorded until the social convulsions of the French Revolution, and the regimes which followed, seem to have crystalized the various complaints of the climacteric into a disease-expression, which reified the social stress to which women were subject. This is dramatically reflected, both in the medical writings published in France around the year 1800, and in the naming, for the first time, of this phase of woman's life: La Menespausie, soon shortened to Menopause.
一种普遍的假设认为，当女性预期寿命确保能度过更年期时，更年期紊乱就会出现，但从人口统计学角度来看，这种假设是站不住脚的。这些紊乱很大程度上受社会文化因素制约，因此，可以预期当这些因素变得具有压力时，更年期紊乱就已开始。历史考察表明，每当女性的地位更多地取决于其吸引力而非其他社会决定因素时，医学或其边缘从业者就总是会参与到延缓衰老的过程中，这是其传统美容活动在逻辑上的“老年医学”延伸。然而，直到法国大革命以及随后的政权引发社会动荡，才记录到更年期紊乱现象，这些政权似乎将更年期的各种不适症状归结为一种疾病表现，从而使女性所遭受的社会压力具体化。这在1800年左右法国出版的医学著作中以及首次对女性生命这一阶段的命名“La Menespausie”（很快简称为Menopause）中都得到了戏剧性的体现。
