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‘Mr Jones’ Wives’: war brides, marriage, immigration and identity formation 1
Abstract
This article traces the cultural history of war bride identity and is based on a cohort of war brides from Canada, Britain, Europe and the Middle East. These foreign‐born war brides of New Zealand servicemen, who arrived in the country at the end of World War Two, formed a lasting war bride identity based on shared experiences rather than common nationality, race or ethnicity. Factors contributing to the formation of a war bride identity were marrying foreign servicemen, travelling on troopships across the world, and an appreciation of the difficulties of settling in New Zealand. An analysis of war brides’ narratives revealed elements of composure and discomposure in accounts of weddings, suggesting the difficult transition required by lone immigrant women arriving in New Zealand in the post‐war period. The long voyage to New Zealand proved to be formative in the development of a lasting war bride identity that has been maintained and nurtured since. Although not a prerequisite of war bride identity, war brides’ clubs are the most tangible expression of this process.
... In the nineteenth-century Western world, marriage was the chief aspiration of middle-class girls, and unmarried women were viewed stereotypically and contemptibly (Dollard 2004). Over the course of the nineteenth century, owing to political, economic, and social processes in both Jewish and non-Jewish societies, as well as dramatic events such as wars and revolutions, a change occurred in the feelings toward the institution of marriage and in the pattern of traditional marriages (Fortune 2006). Dating from the end of the eighteenth century, the shift from arranged marriages to marriage by choice, the development of the concept of the romantic nature of being a couple, and the feminist concept of gender equality influenced the ways in which Jews related to their functioning as a couple in general and to the marriage rite in particular (Koren 2006: 57-60). ...
The complex approach of the Yishuv to religion and tradition was articulated in the matter of marriage rites. On the one hand, wedding ceremonies were seen as an expression of Diaspora social values that the Yishuv wished to renounce, while, on the other hand, such occasions were viewed
as having national and collective significance. The decision made by Ada Shertok and Eliyahu Golomb not to have a wedding ceremony in May 1922 aroused a fierce debate within one of the most prominent families of the Yishuv. The family dispute surrounding the issue of the marriage ceremony
and the diverse opinions presented in it are the focus of the article. This debate is a starting point for a broader discussion on the question of the complex attitude of the Yishuv to religion and tradition in the early 1920s.
This article compares marriage patterns in the formative years of the religious kibbutz movement (1929–1948) with those in secular kibbutzim at that time. It explores how members of religious kibbutzim, who adopted many of the revolutionary values embraced by secular kibbutzim, dealt with the issue of marriage while maintaining their religious way of life. This problem serves as a case study for understanding the unique complexities that arise when revolutionary ideas are combined with traditional values. The issue of marriage on religious kibbutzim had distinctive features in relation to both religious society and the secular kibbutz. At the same time it shows that in practice, the patterns of behavior on both types of kibbutzim were fairly similar.
A partir de l'histoire de vie de sa mere, femme japonaise mariee a un Americain dans le contexte de la deuxieme guerre mondiale, l'A. explore la maniere dont se sont constitues la representation et le sentiment de soi de cette femme, dans la complexite de sa condition sociale, de classe, ethnique/raciale, sexuelle, et dans le contexte de relations sociales marquees par le nationalisme americain de la periode d'apres-guerre. Elle montre comment les cadres culturels, ou les ideologies americaine et japonaise ont faconne la subjectivite de sa mere. S'inspirant des theories feministes, son objectif est de contribuer a la mise en evidence des processus de formation de la subjectivite feminine, dans un contexte complexe, en meme temps de soumission et de resistance a un systeme social inegalitaire.
History & Memory 16.2 (2004) 108-139
The span of time between the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64)—a radical, Christian-inspired politico-religious upheaval that ravaged seventeen provinces and took an estimated twenty million lives—and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76)—a violent movement launched by Mao Zedong during his last decade in power to renew the spirit of the Chinese revolution—may well be characterized as the bloodiest century in Chinese history. This period witnessed the collapse of the imperial state and the emergence of a new order in a series of long, destructive shock waves. Civil strife, revolution, and war against foreign forces set off unprecedented eruptions of violence. To this were added natural calamities and environmental exhaustion, which in turn were exacerbated by the political crises and the resulting failure of the state to effectively deal with floods, droughts, the vanishing of farm lands, starvation and epidemics. To be sure, all these kinds of catastrophes had occurred repeatedly in Chinese history (as elsewhere in the world). But the thick accumulation and enormous scale of destruction and death sets this period apart from all others.
It was distinctive, too, in the growth of the proportion of the populace who became victims of political violence. An increasing number of people were persecuted and killed by their own government. How many Chinese vanished in the "democides" perpetrated by various Chinese regimes will never be exactly known, but it is safe to assume that political violence and state persecutions killed tens of millions of Chinese citizens and left even more physically and psychologically wounded. As many theories have stressed, state violence aims to control people by inflicting fear and suffering, which induce a range of traumas: from pain, anguish, fear, loss and grief, to the destruction of a coherent and meaningful reality. The century between the Taiping Rebellion and the Cultural Revolution was one of the most traumatizing in Chinese history in that traumas and suffering were no longer isolated, occasional events: they became wide-spread and ubiquitous.
The study of traumatic events and the study of memory are interrelated in many ways. Individuals usually remember terrifying events all too well for long periods, under emotional stress that sometimes does not abate (e.g. in post-traumatic stress disorder). Traumas, however, do not just afflict individuals; they affect whole communities and even nations. Many communities stricken by large traumas feel an obligation to combat forgetting and properly commemorate those who have disappeared. Indeed, some researchers maintain that trauma is essentially a social event.
Communities react to traumas in different ways: organizing rescue operations, bringing relief to victims, offering solace to families that have lost members, helping people to cope with the delayed effects of the trauma and establishing modes of commemoration and mourning. This suggests, at minimum, that communities promote rituals and patterns that influence or determine the ways in which members of the community recollect the traumatic events—in other words, that an important aspect of community response is to make the trauma meaningful. But traumatic events—according to neurologists and psychiatrists as well as literary critics—are ones that, due to their intensity, cannot be comprehended within ordinary cognitive structures, ones that are impossible to recollect in the normal processes of either personal or public memory. They call for extraordinary, conscious efforts of narration and representation.
Although often ignored in the historiography of China, the historical import of large-scale trauma is obvious. Besides causing many to suffer in the first place, traumatic events have continued to disrupt individual memories and, consequently, public discourses, profoundly affecting society and culture. No truly comprehensive history of modern China can ignore the traumas caused by both natural calamities and man-made catastrophies. Such a history must integrate the personal memories of traumatized persons with the overall representation of the past. While social or economic histories may legitimately seek to portray the ordinary aspects of everyday life during the early years of the People's Republic of China (PRC), or to set forth in general terms the modernizing efforts, successes or failures of the government, the memories...
Women Together: a history of women's organisations in New Zealand Immigration and National Identity in New Zealand: one poeple, two peoples, many peoples?
- J Leckie
J. Leckie (1993) Immigration, Ethnicity and Women's Organisations, in A. Else (Ed.) Women Together: a history of women's organisations in New Zealand (Wellington: Daphne Brasell Associates Press and Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs), p. 506; S. W. Greif (1995) (Ed.) Immigration and National Identity in New Zealand: one poeple, two peoples, many peoples? (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press);
Battalion histories in the Official History series give details of the routes taken on the outward and return journeys
- Murphy
Murphy, 2nd New Zealand Division Artillery, pp. 7ff. Battalion histories in the Official History series give details of the routes taken on the outward and return journeys; Wing Commander
Culture and Composure
- Summerfield
Summerfield, 'Culture and Composure', pp. 65–93;
Scars on the Heart: two centuries of New Zealand at war (Auckland: David Bateman in association with Auckland Museum
- C Pugsley
C. Pugsley (1996) Scars on the Heart: two centuries of New Zealand at war (Auckland: David Bateman in association with Auckland Museum, 1996), p. 256.
Envelopes of Sound: the art of oral history
- R J Grele
R. J. Grele (1985) Envelopes of Sound: the art of oral history (Chicago: Precedent Publishing);
Lady Freyberg was the wife of Lieutenant General Freyberg, Commander of Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force during World War Two
- Weekly
Weekly News, 18 September 1946, p. 12. Lady Freyberg was the wife of Lieutenant General Freyberg, Commander of Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force during World War Two.
Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–45: 2nd New Zealand Division Artillery
- W E Murphy
W. E. Murphy (1966) Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–45: 2nd New Zealand Division Artillery (Wellington: War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs), p. 12.