Wandering womb

I Procreation

A young woman lies in her bed while the doctor prescribes a treatment to heal her malady. It would seem this is a most peculiar ailment, because the patient is smiling and her next of kin appear joyful as if all of them were aware of some comical circumstance hidden to the viewer. Indeed, all those present know the cause of the affliction which distresses the fair maiden: her prolonged virginity. If the female body’s purpose was procreation, contravening it could have nothing but dire somatic consequences. This idea lent itself well to satire and, of course, art and literature could not overlook it.

We can see clues to the nature of her sickness in the scene, such as the triumphant cupid on the door lintel, whose arrow points to the convalescent, or the embracing lovers in the idyllic landscape of the painting hanging on the wall.  What ends up giving us the key to the issue, however, is the note on the floor, which reads: «medicine is to no avail, where sweet pain is the ail» («Hier baet geen medesyn, want het is minnepyn»). This doctor may well favour the (almost) Hippocratic idea of the wandering womb, still very influential in the 17th century. According to this theory, the uterus freely roams the woman’s body in response to stimuli such as smells, sounds, and the unfulfillment of the natural cycle of life. The urchin smiles with malice and seems to entertain no doubt about the matter: he has already prepared an enema, an instrument with clear sexual connotations. It was considered a medically plausible and socially acceptable substitute for the object of desire, and the natural remedy for a wandering womb provoked by lovesickness. [Fernando Sanz-Lázaro]