One of the foundational beliefs in Gilead is that women are supposed to bear children. So, there is a lot of pressure on the daughters of Commanders at the Aunt Lydia School to prove they can bear children.
So far this season we’ve seen Agnes (Chase Infiniti) get her period and graduate from a Plum to a Green, which means she’s ready to get married off and start breeding for Gilead. Since there is no other option for women in Gilead, the girls who are still Plums are desperate to get their periods.
In The Testaments episode 5, “The Ball” Shunammite (Rowan Blanchard) and Huldah (Isolde Ardies) turn to a medieval solution for their problem- herbs.
In the kitchen at the ball Shunammite shares a small glass jar of a cold herbal tea with Huldah. Her cousin told her the herbal concoction, made from nettles that Shu fermented in her closet, would bring on their menses.
In a world where every aspect of women’s bodies are controlled by men and the latest science, it’s interesting that the girls would turn to an ancient remedy, like so many women before them who were denied any control over their bodies.
Like many of the herbal remedies passed down between women for centuries, this nettle tea has a basis in science, and is still used by women today to support uterine health.
The Tea Shu And Huldah Made In The Testament Episode 5
The girls would have had little or no access to anything besides the most basic herb. And since they weren’t allowed to read they would have had to visually recognize plants or herbs. Still, stinging nettles are pretty easy to find. They could have found them easily in their yards or out walking. And it turns out, nettles have been used for encouraging menses to start and other female-related health concerns for thousands of years.
One of the most famous female healers and philosophers, Hildegard Von Bingen, wrote about using nettles in her ground-breaking natural medicine manual Physica:
“Nettle is a plant which God created and it has many useful properties. First, because it is naturally warm, it gives heat to the body. And if it is boiled in water with salt and oil, it causes the blood to be cleansed and relaxes the belly; and if mixed with butter and applied, it is a remedy against quartan fever.”
And even today herbalists recommend supplements and teas made from nettles for women who are having period issues.
Most relevant to this scene in The Testaments, nettle tea is supposed to balance the endocrine system. The endocrine system in the body directly impacts menstruation. So, it makes sense that girls who hadn’t gotten their periods yet would try drinking nettle tea to “fix” their endocrine system and start their periods.
The Power Of Nettle Tea
Shunammite doesn’t really want to share the noxious looking concoction, which she says tastes like mushrooms and “womanhood”. It looks pretty nasty, fermented nettles in some kind of brown liquid. She gives Huldah one large sip of the tea, then snatches it back. That one sip was enough for Huldah though, she starts her period later that night. Praise be to the power of nettle tea.
It makes me wonder what other herbal remedies and concoctions the women in Gilead use to try and wrest some control over their bodies and their lives. Frankly, if none of the Marthas have started poison gardens by now, I’m disappointed in their failure of imagination.
The tea didn’t seem to work for Shunammite though, so it will be interesting to see if she tries any other folklore-based tricks to finally move from Plum to Green.
If you want to learn more about the herbal remedies that women used in medieval Europe to relieve pain, support menstruation, and stay healthy check out these books:
and check back each week for my reactions to new episodes of The Testaments and more.