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.Many of the boys had been draftedstraight out of secondary school, and some of them had never even been awayfrom home before.Some of them had probably had some sort of romanticadventure in England before D-Day, but many probably hadn t.Perhaps theywere still pining for a childhood sweetheart back home, unsure whether shewould still be waiting for them when they returned.As for the French girls,most of whom came from strict Catholic families, many of them had never dated before or had a steady boyfriend.Or if they did, they often fearedtheir loved one would never return.Other factors could also come into play.Sometimes the opposition of the girls family spurred them on to a romanticentanglement; and in a few cases, it was actually the parents who encouragedthe girls to go out with a GI.Furthermore, the times were exhilarating, and there was a sense of urgencyin the air.When would Harry or Dick have to leave again for the front?Would he be killed or wounded? Would Jeanette or Marie remain faithful?When would they see each other again? Then, after the war in Europe wasover, the question was: When would he have to go back to the UnitedStates? This sense of urgency, together with the heightened sense of sexualawareness that goes along with youth and war, helped these people fall inlove quickly.Sometimes they waited till after marriage to have sexual rela-tions, sometimes they didn t.But if they didn t, and the girl became pregnant, 150 Conclusionthe GI would propose marriage.Or at least that is what happened to thewomen in this book.It was the gentlemanly, virtuous, American way todo things for many young men of the time.Another theme that appears in the stories is a certain amount of naivetéand unconsciousness on the part of the young war brides.They made thehasty decision to marry a man they hardly knew, to leave their native landand to immigrate to America, often without considering the consequencesshould it not work out.Indeed, for most war brides, the sea voyage toAmerica was a one-way trip; neither they nor their parents could afford topay for a return ticket.Nor would most of them even dare to return, sincethey would have had to face the recriminations of their families, especiallyif they had to get married in the first place.Marrying a man they barely knew, the women had romantic notions thateverything would be fine once they were together, that love would conquerall. Or if it didn t, as one woman said: I wasn t really in love, but whenyou re 19, you re always a little in love.so I said to myself it doesn t reallymatter.I ll divorce if it doesn t work out. But, as this woman would discover, divorce proceedings in America werenot always so easy to initiate, especially if you were a foreigner.And, as oftenhappened, it could turn out to be the husband who left or asked for a divorce,sometimes leaving the abandoned French-born wife in difficult financialcircumstances with no child support.1Another problem the women had not reckoned on was suffering from culture shock. Although America and the American way of life had oftenbeen an ideal for them, the reality of adapting to a new culture on their ownwithout the support of family and friends was fraught with difficulties.Asintercultural researchers tell us, first you adapt on the superficial level: youlearn the language, you adopt the dress and habits, you cook the food.Thenyou discover that there are so many hidden differences the underside of the iceberg, so to speak the ways of thinking, the norms and values, the corebeliefs.These are much more difficult to adapt to, and for a young Frenchwoman back in the 1940s, it was no easy task.Moreover, most of the time, theyhad to fend for themselves.Their husbands did not realize or did not acknowl-edge the changes the women were confronting or the efforts they were making.And, although back then there were, in certain places, Red Cross orientationprograms and French War Brides clubs, there were no cross-cultural seminars,no books on culture shock, no survival kits for overseas living. 2No wonder many of the marriages ended in divorce! Marriage is hardenough, but when it is a mixed or exogamous3 marriage, it is even harder. Conclusion 151What is admirable, however, is that the women who divorced werecourageous enough to stay on and to make lives for themselves in theiradopted country.This is not to say that the women whose marriages lastedwere not courageous.It is just that a divorced woman faces additional diffi-culties, especially when living in a country whose language is not their ownand where the legal system is different.The French brides discovered thatAmerican states each had separate divorce laws, and the legal rights offoreign residents were not always clear.In some states, it seems, a husbandwas not even required to notify his wife that she was being, or had been,divorced!4In all truth, though, it must be said that it would also have been very diffi-cult for the women to get a divorce in France or to even return after obtainingone in America.Most of the women s families were Catholic, and divorce inFrance in the 1950s still carried with it a stigma that was even worse thanthe one it had in conventional 1950s America.For the women whose marriages ended in divorce, incompatibilitywhether owing to cultural differences, lack of common interest, or other fac-tors was a big issue.But incompatibility could exist even when the marriagelasted.As often happened back in those days, and as still happens today incertain circles, despite the problems, women stayed on in unhappy marriagesbecause of children, material security, or various other reasons.According to the French women I interviewed, one of the problems thatcould lead to incompatibility in the couple was the education gap betweenthem and their GI husbands.Although only several from my sample actuallyhad a college degree before marrying, the women I spoke to were, on thewhole, fairly well-educated before marrying.A few of them had started takinguniversity courses at the outbreak of the war, and almost all of them had abrevet supérieur, or the equivalent, at the time, of a French baccalaureate oran American high school diploma.Several were musicians; one was a balle-rina with the Paris opera.Very few had stopped school at an early age.As we have already mentioned, their husbands had often gone off to thewar straight out of high school or after some sort of vocational training.Evenif the French girls had only gone to a French secondary school, their educa-tional level and cultural awareness were usually greater than that of the aver-age American of the same age.There were good schools in America, ofcourse, but in the 1940s, and still today, it all depended on where you lived.Farm boys and boys who lived in city ghettos obviously did not get much book learning, as the saying goes.Whereas in France, with its universal,nationalized system of education, lycées [high schools] throughout the 152 Conclusioncountry had good standards, and if you succeeded academically in actuallyreaching high school, you had a rather good educational level.In addition, since French schools have always tended to teach Culture (with a capital C) history, literature, philosophy, art, music, and so onthe women were obviously more cultivée [cultured] than their American hus-bands.Of course, there were exceptions.For example, the husband, if he werean officer, might have attended college or come from a well-educated family
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