A great casualty of war, Melbourne's feminist, pacifist Woman Voter saw, was the sexual moral code that (however flawed and hypocritical) in peacetime works to save girls from disease and pregnancy.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Now, 100 years ago this week, wartime sinfulness was being played out, the Voter showed (with its own eye-witness reporting) right there in Melbourne. Debauched soldiers and girls were everywhere in streets and gardens near army camps and hospitals.
"The war, that great moral uplifter, as it has been proclaimed by the Churches, has wrought a change of moral sentiment ... The returned soldier who has endured the torture of war, inevitably feels a bitterness for the community which, having absorbed his youth, pushes him out to fend for himself ... Such bitterness shows itself in a determination to get what pleasures he can, by riotous behaviour, drink and debauchery.
"From the girls' point of view the soldiers are held up to them as heroes, to whom nothing can be refused – and also as poor fellows who will so soon be dead. So a tender-hearted, ignorant girl cannot resist granting him what love she has to give.
"St Kilda road. A cold, damp night.
"Every seat along the footpath was occupied by soldiers and girls, embracing each other, many of the latter being mere children with short frocks ... Some of the girls, apparently overcome by liquor, were almost asleep in their companions' arms. On the grass plots, behind the seats, dozens of men and girls were lying in the dark."
