A study of attitudes toward menarche in white middle-class American adolescent girls.

Material from interviews with 35 premenarcheal and postmenarcheal girls suggests that menarche is an emotional event related to the adolescent girl's emerging identity as an adult woman, her newly acquired ability to reproduce, and her changing relationship with her mother. However, our culture tends to ignore the affective importance of menarche and instead conveys the view that it is a hygienic crisis. The authors suggest the need for developing a socially and culturally appropriate substitute to serve the emotional function that more primitive societies have met with social rituals, thus meeting the psychological needs of the young adolescent girl.