Lizzie Borden’s Menstrual Cycle: Fact vs. Fiction in Netflix’s ‘Monster’
In Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, showrunners Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan place Lizzie Borden’s (Ella Beatty) menstrual cycle and physical symptoms at the center of the opening episode. In the premiere, debilitating menstrual cramps strike during a conversation with a potential suitor, causing her to stain an expensive sofa with blood—a mess cleaned up by new maid Bridget Sullivan (Vicky Krieps), securing her the job. Later in the series, Bridget examines Lizzie and claims she has an imperforate hymen.
While biological functions did play an unexpected role in the historical 1892 double-murder investigation and the 1893 trial, the medical conditions and dramatic sofa scenes depicted on screen are largely modern dramatic inventions.
1. The Real-Life Evidence: The Cellar Pail and Victorian Taboos
Menstruation was heavily shrouded in silence during the Victorian era, but it became a pivotal piece of physical evidence during the investigation into the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden:
-
The Bloody Rags: When Fall River police searched the cellar after the murders, they were puzzled by the absence of blood on Lizzie’s clothes. They located a pail containing blood-soaked cloths in the basement and a small pinpoint spot on an underskirt.
-
Male Hesitation: When questioned, Lizzie stated that she was having her period. Family physician Dr. Seabury Bowen confirmed she was menstruating. Because 19th-century male investigators were squeamish and culturally conditioned to avoid female bodily functions, the officers took her word at face value and never chemically tested or thoroughly examined the contents of the pail.
-
The “Hiding in Plain Sight” Theory: Modern criminologists and legal historians have frequently speculated that if Lizzie was the killer, she may have capitalized on Victorian modesty, using sanitary rags to clean up blood spatter knowing male detectives would refuse to look closer.
2. The 1893 Trial Defense: The “Monthly Illness”
Lizzie’s defense team, led by former Massachusetts Governor George Robinson, actively integrated her cycle into their legal strategy:
-
Victorian Medical Assumptions: In the late 19th century, menstruation was frequently classified by physicians as a temporary physical and mental disorder—often termed a “monthly illness” or “uterine irritability” that could trigger emotional instability.
-
The Defense Argument: Robinson told the jury that Lizzie’s period had ended on August 3, 1892—the day prior to the slayings—arguing she was still physically weak and emotionally “unbalanced” from its lingering effects.
-
“Peculiar Spells”: As documented in Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton, and Emily Toth’s 1976 study The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation, historical notes described Lizzie as having occasional “peculiar spells” during her cycle. While some later theorists attempted to link these to temporal lobe epilepsy, modern medical historians view them as normal hormonal fluctuations common with standard menstrual cycles.
3. Did Lizzie Have an Imperforate Hymen?
-
Pure Fabrication: The plotline where Bridget diagnoses Lizzie with an imperforate hymen—a rare congenital disorder where a membrane completely blocks the vaginal opening, obstructing menstrual flow—has no basis in the historical or medical record.
-
Narrative Purpose: Show creators invented the detail to heighten the series’ themes of physical and sexual repression, using anatomical confinement as a visual metaphor for the psychological trap of the Borden home.
The real Lizzie Borden did not suffer from unique or debilitating reproductive pathologies, but the cultural discomfort surrounding women’s health in 1892 created investigative blind spots that helped keep her off the gallows.
