Military Wives: Ambiguity in a Traditional Role

1991 ◽  
Vol 68 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1307-1308
Author(s):  
Diane E. Levy ◽  
Gary L. Faulkner ◽  
Renee Steffensmeier

The traditional pattern of the two-person career in the military has undergone a transition so that the contemporary role of the military wife has become similar to the civilian one. Data from 111 women married to servicemen stationed overseas at 13 bases in 4 countries suggest that, although the traditional dependent pattern is no longer universal, much role ambiguity and conflict remain as families adapt to the changing military environment.

2021 ◽  
pp. 0095327X2110293
Author(s):  
Amy Johnson ◽  
Kate Ames ◽  
Celeste Lawson

Military spouses are situated at the junction of the military and civilian worlds. They provide necessary support to military strategic and operational objectives and are also expected to perform a traditional spousal role of the ‘good’ military wife. This article demonstrates the existence of strong military partner archetypes which guide military community norms and expectations of spousal behaviour. In 14 qualitative interviews and five focus groups with Australian military partners, participants revealed many different, yet firm, sentiments related to identity, including fierce independence; a sense of belonging; self-reliance; a desire to help others; belief in fairness and pragmatism. The archetypes outlined in this article shape how partners see their role, and how they interact with other non-military partners and the military organization. This research delivers insights into optimizing military partner services to better support spouses through deployment, relocation and other military experiences.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ziff ◽  
Felicia Garland-Jackson

Within the institution and military community, civilian wives of service members occupy complicated roles. On the one hand, wives are undisputedly crucial to the functioning of their service member husbands. However, wives are simultaneously considered subordinate to their husbands within the military and extended community. Indicative of this attitude are the divisive stereotypes of military wives that range from lazy and irresponsible, to overly rank-conscious and entitled. Based on combined in-depth interviews from two samples of military wives, this article investigates how the women navigate the military spouse role within the institutional, community-oriented context of the military. Specifically, we ask, how do these women construct gender and exercise agency when drawing on the stereotypes of wives within the community? By utilizing such mechanisms as symbolic boundary work, gender policing, and stereotyping, women both reify stereotypes of the military spouse and exert agency in creating the military spouse identity for themselves.


1983 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 191-200
Author(s):  
R. N. Swanson

The traditional role of the medieval latin church in legitimising warfare tends to fall into two main categories. On the one hand, there are the secular political wars, in which the church can perhaps be seen as a third force: while called on to legitimise and support partisan conflict between supposedly Christian antagonists, it could also work as a force for peace. On the other hand, there are the religious wars, to which the church was itself a party, either in warfare against infidels, or against those who, in their obstinacy, refused to recognise and accept the authority of the Roman church.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 137-142
Author(s):  
ALEXEY ROMAKHIN ◽  

This article reveals the problem of the role of the religious factor in the formation of the value orientations of the military personnel of the Russian army from its inception to the present state. In the article, the author reveals the significance of the Church in the formation of the value orientations of military personnel. The problem of religious situation in foreign armies is considered. The article presents data from sociological studies confirming the increase in the number of religious servicemen in the modern Armed Forces. The concept of “religious factor” is revealed. The author suggests considering the influence of the religious factor on the formation of value orientations through the functions of religion. The article provides examples of the influence of religion on the formation of value orientations of military personnel from the time of the Baptism of Russia to the present. Examples of writers of Russian classical literature about the influence of religion on the morale of troops are given. Examples of religious participation in major battles and wars of the past years are shown. The significance of the religious factor in uniting the people and the army is shown. The work of officials of the Ministry of defense of the Russian Federation in strengthening values among military personnel in modern conditions is demonstrated. The role of the Minister of defense of the Russian Federation, General of the army S.K. Shoigu in strengthening the faith of the Russian army is outlined. Issues related to the construction of the Main Temple of the Armed Forces and its impact on the public masses were discussed. In this study, the author aims to show the significant role of religion in the formation of value orientations in Russian military personnel. The analysis shows an increasing role of religion in the minds of military personnel in modern conditions.


Author(s):  
Michael Koortbojian

The ancient Romans famously distinguished between civic life in Rome and military matters outside the city—a division marked by the pomerium, an abstract religious and legal boundary that was central to the myth of the city's foundation. This book explores, by means of images and texts, how the Romans used social practices and public monuments to assert their capital's distinction from its growing empire, to delimit the proper realms of religion and law from those of war and conquest, and to establish and disseminate so many fundamental Roman institutions across three centuries of imperial rule. The book probes such topics as the appearance in the city of Romans in armor, whether in representation or in life, the role of religious rites on the battlefield, and the military image of Constantine on the arch built in his name. Throughout, the book reveals how, in these instances and others, the ancient ideology of crossing the pomerium reflects the efforts of Romans not only to live up to the ideals they had inherited, but also to reconceive their past and to validate contemporary practices during a time when Rome enjoyed growing dominance in the Mediterranean world. The book explores a problem faced by generations of Romans—how to leave and return to hallowed city ground in the course of building an empire.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Landman

A majority of the black community of Dullstroom-Emnotweni in the Mpumalanga highveld in the east of South Africa trace their descent back to the southern Ndebele of the so-called ‘Mapoch Gronden’, who lost their land in the 1880s to become farm workers on their own land. A hundred years later, in 1980, descendants of the ‘Mapoggers’ settled in the newly built ‘township’ of Dullstroom, called Sakhelwe, finding jobs on the railways or as domestic workers. Oral interviews with the inhabitants of Sakhelwe – a name eventually abandoned in favour of Dullstroom- Emnotweni – testify to histories of transition from landowner to farmworker to unskilled labourer. The stories also highlight cultural conflicts between people of Ndebele, Pedi and Swazi descent and the influence of decades of subordination on local identities. Research projects conducted in this and the wider area of the eMakhazeni Local Municipality reveal the struggle to maintain religious, gender and youth identities in the face of competing political interests. Service delivery, higher education, space for women and the role of faith-based organisations in particular seem to be sites of contestation. Churches and their role in development and transformation, where they compete with political parties and state institutions, are the special focus of this study. They attempt to remain free from party politics, but are nevertheless co-opted into contra-culturing the lack of service delivery, poor standards of higher education and inadequate space for women, which are outside their traditional role of sustaining an oppressed community.


Author(s):  
Timur Gimadeev

The article deals with the history of celebrating the Liberation Day in Czechoslovakia organised by the state. Various aspects of the history of the holiday have been considered with the extensive use of audiovisual documents (materials from Czechoslovak newsreels and TV archives), which allowed for a detailed analysis of the propaganda representation of the holiday. As a result, it has been possible to identify the main stages of the historical evolution of the celebrations of Liberation Day, to discover the close interdependence between these stages and the country’s political development. The establishment of the holiday itself — its concept and the military parade as the main ritual — took place in the first post-war years, simultaneously with the consolidation of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Later, until the end of the 1960s, the celebrations gradually evolved along the political regime, acquiring new ritual forms (ceremonial meetings, and “guards of memory”). In 1968, at the same time as there was an attempt to rethink the entire socialist regime and the historical experience connected with it, an attempt was made to reconstruct Liberation Day. However, political “normalisation” led to the normalisation of the celebration itself, which played an important role in legitimising the Soviet presence in the country. At this stage, the role of ceremonial meetings and “guards of memory” increased, while inventions released in time for 9 May appeared and “May TV” was specially produced. The fall of the Communist regime in 1989 led to the fall of the concept of Liberation Day on 9 May, resulting in changes of the title, date and paradigm of the holiday, which became Victory Day and has been since celebrated on 8 May.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
N. V. Litvak

The article considers the scientific diplomacy — a relatively new phenomenon in international practice — as a type of diplomacy which took shape quite recently, in the 21st century, with the advent of both the term itself, and the corresponding concepts, and the Foreign Ministry units of some countries. However, it is necessary to clarify the terminology and essence of this practice, which has a much more long history. At the present time, there is a reassessment of this historical experience, as well as another attempt to put science in the civil service in one more — diplomatic aspect, as it has already happened with the military, educational and some other areas. At the same time, the scientific community itself in this process has the opportunity to play not only the role of an object or a passive performer. The demand for science is clearly manifested in periods of war and conflict, which in various forms do not stop today. This causes the urgency of the problem. At the same time, the conscious activity of politicians and scientists is combined with objective, independently developing, incl. latently, unobviously, by the processes of political struggle and scientific knowledge, which leads to complex combinations of interrelations between politics and science. The study of such events and processes allows us to draw some conclusions regarding relations between science and diplomacy, to determine the trend of consistent “scientification” of diplomacy, like of any other sphere of society, the transition from diplomacy-mail (communication) through diplomacy-art to diplomacy-science, formulate a hypothesis that diplomacy in general is a scientific project.


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