During this special anniversary year of ANZAC, our thoughts turn to those events of 100 years ago. In the May 1915 edition of Madonna, regular writer Constance M. Le Plastrier wrote a long reflection on the role that Australian women were playing in that great conflict. Here is an extract from her article.
Woman has to endure, to take up the burden of the days and weeks and months, and bear it bravely, even though her heart is wrung and her pillow wet every night with the bitter tears of loneliness. It may be questioned whether this does not require as great or even a greater courage than that which sends the man into the field to brave a thousand dangers, for, after all, action is stimulating.
It is the long grey days, and the same familiar round, with never a touch of novelty to make the work easy, that saps the courage and wears down the bravest heart. This is the woman’s work. To go on in the same duties day after day. To keep the home together as it ought to be, the home that the beloved father or son or husband will not come into for many, many months more.
There is a certain amount of excitement to buoy the men up—the training, the ship, the voyage, the companionship of many of their kind, the strange countries which will be seen and crossed. Even the dangers and horrors of war have their fascination for those who· are longing to serve their country. For the woman there is no such excitement; she goes back to the home, that seems now so desolate.
She takes up life again just as if he whom she loved was not gone, and perhaps for ever. For her there is no new companionship to take the edge off the parting, and the familiar things by which she is surrounded have each a tongue to speak of the one who has gone. The sight of the unused garden tools, of an old cap, a favourite chair, or an old pipe may inflict a stab as sharp as a bayonet-thrust and none the less keen because it is bloodless.
Even in the matter of dangers the woman gets her share. For where is the mother, sister, or wife who does not worry over her men folk? She imagines all the dangers that might befall them, whereas they have to bear only those which really happen. The long gaps between the letters are filled for the men with action, for the women with waiting.
It will seem as though this were a dismal catalogue of the woes of women, but it is nothing of the kind. So many complain that they have little to do to help in this time of universal danger, that it is as well to see what we can do and ought. Our men are learning their drill, let us learn ours. First step: cheerfulness. No long faces, no doleful tales, no exaggeration of woes. Daily duties done as simply as though the evening were going to bring our men home as usual. Second step: work. There is plenty of action for us. Many a woman has been left with several little children to tend; if your own family is small, give her a hand. Help to find work for those who need it. Keep things going as usual, that is, as far as you can.
The all-important step you may think I have forgotten, but l have left till the last because it not only begins but ends the drill. For the first step and the last is prayer. Not the mere repetition of words, but prayer from the heart, and made part of our lives.
Without this the cheerfulness and work will be failures, our burdens will be heavier than we can bear, and our natures will be soured, not sweetened and strengthened by the trials through which we are passing.
We have the model on the mount. Our dear Mother Mary shared the labours and teaching of her Divine Son in just this way. She prayed, she was cheerful, she worked, and, again, closing the circle, she prayed. So it was during the years of his public life, so it was after he had ascended to the right hand of his Father. She prayed; she was cheerful; she worked. What more do we want, we who are her children?
