for advocating war, but do indicate the things that it is desirable to procure in times of peace.
Another effect of war—or what appears as another effect, although intimately connected with the effects just discussed, is the general unsettling of sexual “morality” among the men in the mobilized forces, and the women who are brought into direct relation to these forces. The effect on the male seems to be produced by the greater sexual opportunities offered,[1] and the greater security of the army life in strange surroundings. The effects of the war on certain elements of the female population in the United States were no less definite. The “lure of the uniform” was a real phenomenon. Undoubtedly this “lure” was much increased by its frequent and detailed discussion in the press, repeatedly suggesting to impressionable young women the opportunities and excused offered them. Possibly many girls were convinced that if they did not feel the much discussed “lure” they were not normal. Nevertheless, there was a real psychological fact at the foundation of this growth.
It is probably that the emphasis on male personality, and the stirring, by the general excitement of the war, of primitive tendency and in-
- ↑ The intense desire of officers and men for overseas duty, which grew after the first expeditions had gone over, was in a great many cases fanned by the current belief in the freedom of sexual life offered soldiers in France.
