Domestic Soldiers (13 page)

Wives, on the other hand, were judged by a different standard altogether. First, there was always the fear that when a woman was tempted into another man’s bed, her heart went with her. A man had physical needs, it was reasoned, but a woman’s emotional needs far outweighed her physical desires (if, indeed, society allowed her to have any physical needs!). A cheating wife, it was thought, meant that she had fallen out of love with her husband. This was certainly a more grave offence, because there was then little opportunity to salvage the marriage.

In wartime, the issue went deeper than this. The faithfulness of wives became a matter of national importance. This was especially true of servicemen’s wives. Fears were widespread that women’s home front affairs might distract servicemen on the battlefront
from their soldierly duties. This, of course, put not only the soldier at danger, but also his comrades, and ultimately, his nation. The matter was thought to be so important in the government’s eyes that servicemen’s wives who were caught or suspected of adultery could lose the right to draw the allowance they were entitled to while their husbands were abroad.

Although this potential loss in income was a powerful incentive to keep mum about any affair, women’s magazines stressed the emotional and psychological impacts of infidelity on the husband. To shield a husband from undue suffering, women were advised to refrain from disclosing an affair from their husbands – especially husbands abroad – unless pregnancy was a consequence of the transgression.
Good Housekeeping
urged women to self-censor anything from letters that might worry or upset husbands – be it small worries such as grouses over food shortages or larger concerns such as affairs. One woman who asked
Woman’s Own
for advice about an affair was told to keep it secret, even though she had contracted venereal disease. In this case, the advice columnist assured the woman that her lack of loyalty was much graver than the disease. ‘Don’t make him suffer,’ she advised. Ignoring the obvious consequences of venereal disease, she finished her line of reasoning with the less-than-sage advice, ‘He can’t know
unless
you tell him.’
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In the event that a serviceman
did
, however, learn about his wife’s infidelity, the military greased the wheels of justice and made it easier for servicemen to seek a divorce. The army and the RAF worked together to set up the Legal Aid Scheme in 1942, providing legal services to those under the rank of sergeant major on any civil matter, and if divorce was decided upon,
the Services Divorce Department helped secure one. Women received no such help under this scheme.

The number of divorce petitions skyrocketed over the course of the war. In 1938, just fewer than 10,000 petitions for divorce were made. That number jumped to almost 25,000 in 1945, with the high-water mark of the period coming in the year after the end of the war, when a little over 47,000 petitions were logged. Whereas adultery was cited as the reason for the dissolution of marriage in 50 per cent of the cases in 1938, over 70 per cent cited adultery in 1945.

From these statistics, adultery would seem to have increased during the war. This may be true, but it is not as simple as the statistics suggest. When marriages broke down, the courts accepted only a few reasons for divorce. One could sue for divorce based on cruelty, insanity, desertion or adultery – there was no recourse to divorce simply on irreconcilable differences, which was only an option after 1969. If, as was the case so often in the
carpe diem
of wartime, marriages were hastily formed with little real knowledge of one’s spouse, or separated couples found love elsewhere, it was difficult to dissolve the marriage once it was realized the two weren’t really compatible.

In fact, some worked the system and employed the excuse of adultery in the absence of any other legal option to divorce. Stories abound of spousal collusion to create the illusion of adultery in order to escape an unhappy marriage. Individuals or couples could hire professionals to stage what was known as a ‘Brighton quickie’ – an artful ruse in which the name of one spouse was entered in the books of a hotel (usually in Brighton) with a person other than their spouse.
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The bill for the hotel was then ‘accidentally’ sent to
the supposedly wronged party, inquiries were made and someone would be produced to corroborate the story. Although Helen Mitchell never goes into details, it seems that one of her friends ‘faked a divorce’ in a similar manner. Helen was intrigued. Perhaps she toyed with the idea herself, but it seems unlikely that her husband would have entered into such intrigue or believed any ruse she might construct on her own. The courts did become wise to this type of judicial manipulation and often refused to grant a divorce if collusion was suspected.

Sometimes divorce was not an option because the costs were too high. This is certainly the case up to 1949, when Legal Aid was expanded to help civilians who could not bear the financial burden of divorce. Barring legal recourse to marital dissolution, however, individuals escaped unhappy marriages by moving out and setting up house with another person. This was often the case for those who could not afford divorce and for those who were denied divorce by the courts.

On the other hand, divorce was the pathway of last resort for many, especially women; there was a strong degree of commitment to marriage, even if they were dissatisfied with the relationship. Both in the home and in the media at the time, there was a sense that a woman’s primary role in marriage was to ensure its success, regardless of personal needs or desires. In her ‘Be a Success’ column in
Woman’s Own
, Rosita Forbes, a regular wartime columnist for the magazine, dealt with the issue of marital discord by answering one young ‘frantic’ wife’s pleading question, ‘Is there
any
life after marriage?’ ‘It’s all so awfully different from what I thought,’ the young woman complained:

Forbes responded with empathy, noting that, ‘Wives, of course, do have a lot to put up with.’ Husbands could be critical, demanding, and sullen, she acknowledged, but the solution to the problem ultimately lay in the young woman’s hands. There was ‘life after marriage’, Forbes assured the young woman. The successful wife needed only to be adaptable. ‘Change yourself to fit being married. It really is less trouble,’ Forbes advised.
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Indeed, despite her discontent with being adaptable and ‘changing’ to fit her husband’s needs and moods, Nella Last nonetheless believed she had a successful marriage. Hers was not a transcendent, intense love affair, but rather a practical one. Great love did exist, she admitted to M-O, but for ‘ordinary’ women like her, one had to rely on more than love. What made her marriage a success turned less on love, she figured, than on ‘toleration’ – hers alone. Alice Bridges also believed her marriage to be a success story. In her mind, once ‘the glamour of love and physical attraction’ faded, friendship was key, as was a ‘mutual mental and spiritual intercourse’. On the other hand, she also believed that the successful marriage hinged upon a woman having ‘affection, keep[ing] herself … fresh and always sweet’ and maintaining a sense of humour. If this was done, ‘She will always keep her husband’s love,’ Alice stated with confidence. Like Nella, Alice also believed that the responsibility for the success of a marriage lay almost entirely with the wife.

While wartime and the years immediately afterwards did see something of a breakdown of these notions and an increase in divorces, it cannot be denied that the war did create unique circumstances that threw men and women together and created the foundations and opportunities for infidelity. Long-term separations, like Natalie experienced, were one of the reasons for extra-marital affairs. Loneliness and the psychological stress caused by worry for loved ones or the physical and emotional pain of bearing the tragedy and destruction of blitzes alone provided the impetus for finding comfort in another’s arms. But the call that brought women increasingly into national service, whether it be in factory work or voluntary work, also provided prime opportunities to mix with the opposite sex.

This fact underpinned many of the arguments against bringing women into what was then considered the male domain. Concerns abounded that women in factories were a distraction to the men with whom they worked side by side. In one factory, the management sent fifty-three women home for wearing tight sweaters. Although they argued that sweaters posed safety hazards because they might catch fire or become snagged on machinery, it seems likely that the sweaters represented more of a danger to the male workers than to the women. Those who disagreed with the dismissals noted sharply that, ‘A small figure in a large sweater might be a threat to safety, a big girl in a small sweater was only a moral hazard to men.’

Shop rules were put in place to minimize such distractions as well-endowed women in tight sweaters. For instance, in one factory, women were required to wear trousers because the work involved stair climbing. Other factories kept women deemed ‘virgins’ – in
this case young unmarried women, ‘old maids’ and widows – separate from other workers.
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While some saw dangers in the intimacy of the workplace, the blackout was also cause for concern, because it provided perfect cover for romantic trysts. Since night-time was the primary scene for fire watching and ARP duty, the mixing of men and women in these jobs came under particular scrutiny for those who saw families and the moral fabric of society disintegrating before their eyes. In September 1942, eligible women were required to participate in fire watching. Because of the moral panic stirred up by the mixing of men and women on such night shifts, the government soon took steps to ensure that men and women had separate sleeping accommodations when they were engaged on fire-watching duties.

It was precisely this wartime moral panic that prompted Alice Bridges to investigate liaisons between men and women in various mixed-sex situations such as ARP duty and dance halls. M-O’s mission to observe and understand British society provided an excuse for Alice to embark on these investigations. She was never officially employed by the organization, but purely of her own volition dutifully reported her observations to them. Many Mass-Observers did report what they heard or saw others doing in the course of their daily routine, but Alice continually placed herself in circumstances that would allow her to study what she called ‘sex life’. While she assured M-O that her investigations were entirely innocent, it is obvious that she soon became dangerously entangled in less-than-above-board situations.

Alice’s investigations began in earnest after a row with her husband in March 1942 over her attempts to
find a suitable wartime occupation. From the beginning of the war, Alice had fought her husband and her poor health to find ways to do her bit for the war effort. In fact, the need to do something for the country was so intense that the anxiety ‘strained’ her heart so much that Alice reported that she ‘nearly went deaf’ worrying over ways in which she could help.

She looked for volunteer work, considered paid employment and schemed various ideas to be helpful, but her husband continually thwarted her efforts. She complained:

Finally, however, despite his protestations, she did join the ARP and slowly became involved in the work. But Alice’s intransigence irked her husband, and he insisted she give it up, and her newfound friends, so that she could focus on her family – on him, in particular.

If she were to give up her friends, Alice pressed her husband to tell her what he was prepared to offer her in return. ‘He looked astonished and said “Nothing, what do you expect?”’ ‘The same old answer,’ she quietly seethed, ‘he soon asks me to give and to give but in no way in thirteen years has he ever given me anything.’ He may have felt he had won the argument, but the issue was nowhere near being resolved in Alice’s mind.

The next day, he stayed out late drinking on a cold and ‘perishing’ evening with his friends, despite the fact he had severe bronchitis. That night she paced the kitchen – walking past the supper going cold on the table – worrying over him, but becoming more and more angry each time she thought of his staying out late without telling her:

When he finally walked in, he mumbled he was sorry, but Alice let loose a torrent of tears that broke forth so violently he became concerned and promised to be more respectful of her feelings in future. Several days later, when the two had apparently reconciled, she felt comfortable enough to ask him why he couldn’t be more of a companion to her.

The issue was no longer just about her doing something useful for the country, it was also about the fact that he spent more time with his mates and kept her home alone, night in, night out. It was a sore wound, picked at over and over throughout their marriage, and the tenuous domestic peace once again evaporated. To her, their relationship would be perfect if only he would take her dancing, to the movies or spend more time with her. Alice told him she appreciated that he gave her enough money to run the household, and she had no complaints about their sex life, but there was more to a relationship than that. She complained that he was unwilling to go that extra step, to make the
marriage ‘100 per cent’: Les’ patience now razor thin, he shot back, ‘You can go out where you like so long as you don’t ask me to take you.’ This was the pass she needed. From this moment onwards, Alice decided to take her husband at his word. That very night, as he went to the local with his mates, she went out with her ARP friends and started her research for M-O in earnest.