War and Mothers

In Support of War and Soldier Sons

Conventionally, it has been understood that women—and mothers in particular—are not directly involved in the waging of war. Mothers stand on the periphery; and in some cultures, the most glorious of mothers are those who are willing to sacrifice their children to war. The duty of mothers is seen as producing the warriors who valiantly will go to war; to that end, mothers are called upon to raise the soldiers who will willingly fight for their country. Historically, those children have been sons who have been reared to value masculine valor as it is tested by war. In this role of mothers who produce future soldiers, women, then, are seen as playing an essential, active role in supporting war.

In the appeals to mothers and motherhood, a mother's duty is tied to notions of patriotism and good citizenship. Some of these mothers are seen as martyrs. For example, in the story from 4 [Page 1256]Maccabees, Hannah, the mother of seven sons, encourages her captured sons to die rather than give in to religious persecution. The seven sons were captured by Antiochus in 167/166 B.C.E. and commanded to eat pork; however, encouraged by their mother, the brothers defiantly refused to do so. One by one, they were grievously tortured and then executed. When the king appealed to Hannah to save her youngest son's life by prevailing upon him to comply, she urged the child instead to follow in the path of his brothers. It is written that “sympathy for her children did not sway the mother of the young men” (4 Maccabees 14:20); rather, she encouraged them to maintain their loyalty to their family, their faith, and their God. Her stoic belief—that there are larger imperatives than a mother's love—has afforded her the status of a mother-martyr.

To this day, mothers who have lost family members in warfare are honored in a wide variety of ways. For example, 11 years after the end of World War I, the United States Congress took an unprecedented step in the history of warfare, offering singular recognition to the mothers of those killed in that war. In 1929, a law was passed authorizing the federal government to disburse funds for Gold Star Mothers—a designation that indicated those mothers who had lost a family member in the war—to travel to the battlefields of Europe to visit the burial sites of their loved ones.

Peace Advocates in the Private Sphere

In opposition to this militarization of motherhood stands the long tradition of associating women with the work of resisting war and advocating for peace. For instance, Aristophanes highlighted this role in Lysistrata (411 B.C.E.), where the eponymous hero of the play calls for the women of Greece to compel their husbands to bring an end to war. Lysistrata calls the women together to swear an oath that they will withhold sex from their husbands until a peace treaty is signed and warfare has ended. Given their status in the domestic realm, women not only are called upon to compel their husbands to achieve peace through diplomatic means, but also are called upon to teach their children to be peacekeepers.

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