Marriage Guidance, Women and the Problem(S) of Returning Soldiers in Finland, 1944–1946

Abstract

When former military chaplains began to give marital guidance to troubled couples after the end of hostilities with the Soviet Union (1941–1944) in Finland, new information about the causes and experiences of marital problems and divorces emerged during guidance sessions. Even lengthy marriages were seen to be burdened due to the stress of reunion and men’s wartime infidelity, increased inclination to drinking and aggressive behaviour. The article discusses the meaning and construction of marital expectations with respect to the development of post-war marital dissolution, and argues that wives in particular tried to adjust their marital expectations in accordance with the general developments in personal life and society. Especially in the case of older marriages, for the majority of women, divorce was seen more as means of personal survival than of seeking happiness, even in the urban areas. Although contemporaries feared that the marital institution was disintegrating, the majority of wives were willing to work to save, or endure, even troubled marriages.

Keywords:

• Second World War
• Finland
• divorces
• demobilization
• family life
• marriage counselling
• pastoral care
• military chaplains

1. Introduction

A modern clergyman wishing to provide spiritual guidance to a modern person should acquire all the knowledge and training which experimental psychology can provide to understand the human being. Such knowledge in no way usurps his true mission, to offer people the revelation of Christ (Pastor Olavi Castrén in a church periodical Vartija in 1947.¹

Soaring divorce rates after the end of hostilities with the Soviet Union (1941–1944) generated an interest in safeguarding the institution of marriage. As in many other countries, in Finland, too, the reconstruction of the war-ravaged society was seen to be linked to the reconstruction of the family.² A strong and stable family was key in the search for ‘normality’ and national consolidation.³ A growing number of psychiatrists and psychologists were called upon to treat both individual and social problems of readjustment.⁴ In Finland, it was former military chaplains who first constituted marital relationships as objects of professional guidance and began to apply psychological knowledge in the treatment of marital problems.

This article focuses on the ways in which post-war couples were trying to ‘pick up the pieces’, and found ways of continuing their troubled marriages with the help of counselling pastors. I argue that counselling sessions provided new space in which ordinary Finnish wives and husbands tried to make sense of their marital discord and find new solutions. Previous research has studied how socially and culturally constructed notions of family and wifehood affected the ways in which women and their obligations as wives were positioned and discussed in post-war society.⁵ However, quite rarely have researchers investigated whether or not contemporaries and invididuals actually behaved as expected. This article sheds new light on how married couples negotiated their understandings of marital troubles and solutions together with counselling pastors.⁶

To contextualize the need for and organization of new counselling services, I describe how family reunifications, inadequate housing, homelessness, and scarcity of everyday necessities confronted tens of thousands of families with severe adjustment challenges.⁷ In addition to wartime infidelity, further stress was caused when thousands of men returned changed from the war. I suggest that counselling pastors were, likewise, both professionally and personally profoundly influenced by their wartime experiences. In the immediate post-war years, Finnish marriage guidance became a mixture of psychological advice and pastoral care, which was heavily influenced by the military chaplaincy experiences of counselling pastors. During the war, chaplains learned new methods to provide informal counselling and consolation to troops and these skills were transferred to their work as counselling pastors.

The end of the war was a shock that had adverse effects on marital life, especially in urban areas. In Nordic comparison, it seems that in Finland and Denmark the post-war marriage and divorce peaks bear some similarities. Figure 1 shows how the divorce rates peaked in both Finland and Denmark one year after the end of the war. In the Finnish case, the peak came in 1945, when there were almost 44,400 marriages and over 5,600 divorces. In Denmark in 1946, one year after the end of the German Occupation, there were almost 40,000 marriages and 7,500 divorces.⁸ Like the war years 1941–1944, in Finland and Denmark the years of the Occupation provoked major social changes which outlasted the war. In Sweden, the wartime upheavals were more moderate than in Finland and Denmark. Norway, on the other hand, was less urbanized than the other two countries, which may explain the low divorce rates in that country.⁹ In Iceland, the situation was exceptional, as the British and US troops constituted almost half of the population.¹⁰

FIGURE 1 Persons divorcing per 10,000 married persons in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, 1938–1955. Source: Flora et al., State, Economy, and Society.^11.

Despite the fears of the clergy and other social commentators, loosening of morals, manifest, for example, in an increase of marital infidelity, was mainly a temporary phenomenon. Both in Finland and Denmark, but particularly in Finland, the divorce rate began to decrease quite rapidly after the first few post-war years. In Finland, by the end of the 1940s the frequency of marital dissolutions was stabilized and remained relatively steady during the 1950s. In the post-war expert discussion, the main focus was on the dissolution of ‘hasty wartime marriages’ and declining morality.¹² Later studies have also emphasized the hastiness of wartime marriages and attitudinal factors in explaining the high post-war divorce rate.¹³ Yet we still know relatively little about the post-war experience of marital dissolution, and how effectively older families were actually capable of resisting the variety of post-war stressors, such as overcrowding (see Figure 2), placing a great strain on both the emotional and physical wellbeing of family members.

FIGURE 2 Overcrowded family living in Helsinki. Picture taken 28 October 1950. Source: People’s archive (Kansan arkisto in Finnish).

To shed new light on the experience of marital dissolution among Finnish couples living in the urban areas, I use counselling records of the Helsinki marriage guidance centre (Kristillisen Palveluskeskuksen avioliittoneuvonta in Finnish). When marriage guidance services operated by Lutheran former military chaplains began after the end of war, they started to produce new client-based information about marital problems in urban settings. Because couples sought help from marriage guidance counsellors voluntarily, they may not be representative of the couples experiencing marital problems as a whole. The counsellors themselves emphasized, however, that clients came from all social classes and even non-believers sought pastoral help.¹⁴ Clients from social groups II (owners of small enterprises, foremen, technicians, nurses, etc.) and III (skilled workers, lower-grade clerical workers, shop assistants, etc.) formed the majority in 1945 (58%) and 1946 (63%).¹⁵ In Helsinki, the typical age of the counselling clients in 1945 was 37 years, and in 53% of the cases the marriage had lasted for more than seven years.¹⁶ In the majority of the cases, clients visited marriage guidance centres alone.¹⁷

Although the voluntary nature of counselling sets some limitations on the representativeness of the couples studied, at least we can learn more about spouses who sought help during difficult times and tried to solve their marital problems. The cases studied can give us some idea of how marriage for some was indeed perceived as an undissolvable union and for others more a question of enduring. Examination of counselling encounters also offers an opportunity to analyse how ideas concerning marriage and gender relations were also constructed and negotiated during counselling sessions.¹⁸

I confine my study to Helsinki, where divorces were most common. During the years 1945–1946, divorce rates peaked, with over 3,000 divorces granted in Helsinki (population at the time 350,000) and almost 10,800 in Finland (population at the time 3.8 million) as a whole. In the years 1945–1946, the marriage guidance centre in Helsinki handled nearly 500 separate client cases and received over 300 written requests for help from the rural areas. Overwhelmed by serious marital problems, hundreds of spouses sought help. To render comprehensible the experiences and stresses of troubled couples, I contextualize in a fairly detailed fashion the physical, social, and emotional environments of post-war families of Helsinki.

Although my focus is mainly on the problems of divorce, it must be noted that the number of marriages contracted followed a pattern similar to that of divorces. In Finland, there were 32,000 marriages in 1943, rising to 44,000 in 1945 and finally to almost 50,000 in 1946 before a decline to 43,500 marriages in 1947. For many the idea of marriage and children promised some stability in turbulent times.¹⁹ As Olivier Wieviorka et al. have pointed out, the stresses of daily life thus both threatened family structures by exposing them to adjustment problems and strengthened them by encouraging new couples to marry and have children.²⁰

I acknowledge that, statistically, wartime marriages have been shown to fail faster than older marriages.²¹ In Helsinki in 1945, 35% of the marriages dissolved had lasted less than five years.²² There were some factors, such as entitlement to dependents’ allowances (sotakuukausipalkka in Finnish), which may have induced people to get married. Most of the wartime marriages have also been claimed to have been contracted after a relatively short period of courtship.²³ Apart from statistical analysis, there are, however, relatively few empirical and systematic studies on the problems of wartime marriages.²⁴ Yet later studies dealing with post-war divorce phenomena in Finland have also stressed the vulnerability of wartime marriages.

The current historiography dealing with post-war family life has pointed out that marriages were probably also strained due to the adjustment problems and traumatic experiences of demobilized soldiers.²⁵ During the years 1939–1945, in total some 700,000 Finnish men out of a population of 3.7 million served in the armed forces. Within the growing body of literature on the experiences of the return to peace, most of the research to date has focused on the experiences of specific groups, such as female workers or children in wartime.²⁶ The social history of veterans’ readjustment to family remains mostly unwritten.²⁷ Yet this earlier research provides an important background on the basis of which to take a more dynamic and family-centred perspective on the experience of returning to peace. Irmeli Hännikäinen’s study on war invalids’ and wounded servicemen’s wives and how they coped is of special importance for the present study. By conducting 32 thematic interviews, she constructed four different types of ‘survivors’ who were able to take care of their seriously injured husbands.²⁸ Hännikäinen’s study provides interesting findings on the women’s coping mechanisms; however, because memories of post-war family life were collected decades later, her analysis loses the immediate experience of family reunifications.²⁹

Finnish post-war psychiatry did not recognize that wartime psychological damage could have any long-term effects, and this affected the ways in which soldiers were treated and viewed.³⁰ Unlike war invalids, soldiers suffering from psychological and social problems were not offered any specific rehabilitation services, and they had to seek help within the existing social and healthcare services, marriage guidance included. When dealing with problems of reintegration and adjustment to society, veterans, their wives, and also the authorities had to use concepts understandable and familiar to contemporaries. Symptoms were interpreted according to the prevailing state of medical and social scientific knowledge. By looking at original sources such as counselling notes and diaries, I aim to capture the immediate experience of reunion in the aftermath of war and its socially constructed nature.³¹

1.1. Sources and methodological considerations

To gain new insight into marital troubles and how these were interpreted by both clients and counsellors during their sessions, I scrutinize the so far unexplored counselling records of the Helsinki marriage guidance centre.³² In Helsinki, marital guidance operated under the ‘Christian Services Centre’ (CSC, Kristillinen Palveluskeskus in Finnish), which itself was part of the national ecclesiastical organization Suomen Kirkon Seurakuntatyön Keskusliitto. Researchers have examined how the post-war years witnessed a new social awakening within the Church. The CSC was one example of Lutheran pastors’ calling to render services (diakonia) to families in distress.³³ The counselling notes were generally written up after counselling sessions; the main reason for this was that counsellors avoided disturbing sessions.

In my article I use records archived during the period 22 January 1945–10 August 1946, during which the pastors made notes on 398 client sessions.³⁴ In its first year, the CSC received 325 clients in total, which is a relatively large number compared to the total number of divorces granted in Helsinki (N = 1544). However, in the following year, 1946, the number of pastors available on call dropped by half, to around 20, which forced the CSC to regulate the number of clients by decreasing the number of advertisements. The total number of clients during the years 1945–1946 was 495.³⁵

Usually the notes on one session amounted to approximately half of or one full handwritten page. Sometimes, if a client was seeking help for reasons other than marital, the notes were much briefer. To ensure clients’ anonymity, no names were mentioned in the notes. The main ethical code of the counsellors was confidentiality. In their joint meetings, counselling pastors were urged not to refer to any client matters in their public speeches or sermons. Although notes usually mentioned the age and occupation of the clients, more detailed background information about the clients was gathered in other files.

The main purpose of keeping records of counselling sessions was to create opportunities for discussion and debriefing with colleagues. Although sometimes counsellors recorded direct quotes from their clients, the content of the notes was a product of selection and memory. The level of detail and reflection also varies from counsellor to counsellor. Usually, counsellors described the reason for the client’s visit, how partners viewed the problem, and what kind of solutions they had proposed to solve the problem. Discussions were based on confidentiality and therefore may reveal more about the vulnerability and emotional lives of people than public divorce proceedings. When the decision to divorce was taken, and the spouse was applying for a divorce on the basis of guilt, the plaintiff had to prove to the court that his or her partner was guilty of acts constituting grounds for divorce. Divorce case files therefore stress more judicial evidence.³⁶ The counselling notes, however, give us, albeit in a decidedly mediated way, an opportunity to analyse more emotional experiences and processes of marital failure. The notes also shed light on the darker sides of family life, including spousal violence.³⁷

The return of the men to family life can be viewed through different sets of relationships. Younger men returned to their parental homes, men married during wartime started their marital life with new brides, and some returned to their families formed before the war as husbands and fathers. As explained, in Finland the main focus of research has been on the reconciliations and troubles of wartime marriages. There is some research on how children have remembered and experienced the return of their fathers. Erkki Kujala, in his research, pointed out how the alcohol consumption and tenseness of returning men adversely affected the emotional lives of their sons.³⁸ This article supplements Kujala’s research from the viewpoint of the contemporary experiences of parents. Analysis of the counselling records affords new insights, particularly into how wives and mothers in the families experienced and handled the stresses of post-war reunifications.³⁹ How the return of young soldiers to their parental homes succeeded remains unexplored.⁴⁰

Although post-war marriage guidance as a separate field of church work was something new, the pastoral care of marriage had existed for centuries in all Nordic countries and in Europe.⁴¹ In Finland, the 1869 Church Law formed the basis for the pastoral work of marriage. Edifying talk and directions were important tools of the pastors, but a variety of admonishments might also be given to quarrelling spouses.⁴² Research on the history and development of pastoral care and marriage guidance has focused on the proclamatory (kerygmatic) nature of counselling in the early days.⁴³ Close reading of counselling materials enables me to show how counsellors started to conceptualize marital troubles both in spiritual and psychological terms.⁴⁴ The counselling pastors’ views on the treatment of marital problems was constructed both during their theological education and wartime service, and these experiences are discussed and contextualized.⁴⁵ As we shall see, the style of pastoral work adopted during wartime continued after the war within the context of marital guidance.⁴⁶ Both clients and counselling pastors adopted the ‘language of nerves’. Without any formal training, both clients and counsellings pastors used diagnostic and medical terms such as psychopathic or depressed to make sense of troublesome situations.⁴⁷

2. Troubled and painful reunions

The end of the war opened up new opportunities for family reunification in Finland. Long-term war-enforced separations affected particularly those families in which husbands or fathers were serving at the front. The evacuation of the population of Finnish Karelia during the summer of 1944 also led to a further breaking up of families. It was estimated that between August and September 1944, as many as 700,000–800,000 Finns, one-fifth of the whole population, were relocated and on the move.⁴⁸

After the Armistice of 19 September 1944, over 500,000 Finnish soldiers had to be demobilized within two months. Between September and November, 23,000 men from Helsinki returned from the war. In total, 34,000 soldiers from Helsinki took part in the hostilities of 1941–1944, of whom approximately 5,000 sustained permanent injuries.⁴⁹ Between the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, the urban population from the ceded territories moved to Helsinki. By the beginning of 1945, some 30,000 displaced people, mainly from Finnish Karelia, were already living in Helsinki.

However, in Helsinki, spousal and family separation also increased due to evacuations. After the February 1944 bombings of Helsinki, most of the mothers and children were sent to rural areas, where they were accommodated, usually by relatives. In total, over 100,000 residents of Helsinki were evacuated. In the period 1941–1944, nearly 10,000 Helsinki children were also transferred to safety in Sweden and other Nordic countries.

Both men and women experienced some form of stress on their return home. Most of the veterans had to find employment or continue their studies. The transition from life at the front to civilian life was difficult in itself. Due to the severe housing shortage, thousands of couples also had to make temporary housing arrangements while waiting for a more permanent dwelling. In Helsinki between November 1944 and February 1945, there were almost 80,000 removals inside the city and most of the movers were subtenants desperately seeking adequate and permanent dwellings. The apartments of Helsinki were also severely overcrowded after the war (see Figure 2). As a result, cramped living conditions had a negative effect on family relations. Living in close proximity to others and a lack of privacy were sources of irritation and easily exacerbated minor disputes into more severe conflicts.⁵⁰

It seems that contemporaries were quite aware of the potential troubles of family reunification. From the end of 1944, a substantial body of literature and newspaper articles was published, informing readers about the problems of demobilization, soldier-to-civilian adjustment, and resumption of family life. Governmental actors and politicians took part in the social construction of family ideals, in which women played an important role as caregivers. Many historians have highlighted this gendered nature of advice. Commonly, women were advised to be tolerant and understanding and subordinate their own dreams to those of returning servicemen.⁵¹

Although different problems of adjustment and communication connected to family reunification strained many relationships, it seems that the majority of the problems could be solved within the families. The main reason for seeking marital counselling from the CSC during the period 1945–1946 was spousal adultery. During 1945, infidelity cases accounted for over one-third of all cases (36%). In the next year, the percentage of infidelity cases was still high, over 31%. In addition, many marriages were under strain due to suspected infidelity and related jealousy. During 1947, the percentage of infidelity cases fell slightly and alcohol abuse became the main reason for seeking help.⁵² Together, those two previously mentioned problems accounted for over 50% of all cases. However, help from the CSC was usually only sought when the stressful demands of marital troubles outweighed the existing resources of individuals and families.

In the public discussions, infidelity was viewed as one example of the ‘degeneration’ of urban morality. Interestingly, most of the commentators did not discuss the issue of family dispersal. However, the counselling pastors noted the dispersal of family as the main factor behind marital troubles. Naturally, population movement itself did not increase infidelity, but it did create new opportunities, especially for men.⁵³ Marriage guidance cases seem to suggest that evacuations from the capital also contributed to infidelity among so-called home front men. Men’s share of infidelity cases was high: in 1945 it reached 88%.⁵⁴ Men became infatuated with the women in the restaurants,⁵⁵ workplaces,⁵⁶ in trains and trolleybuses,⁵⁷ and at frontline canteens;⁵⁸ in practice, in places in which they encountered women face-to-face. However, affairs also develped from the exchange of letters.⁵⁹

The divorce statistics partially confirm that most marital problems were related to infidelity. During the years 1938–1941, divorces granted due to adultery or sexually transmitted diseases (STD) amounted to 9–12%, but the share rose rapidly in the following years. In 1945–1946, about one-third of all divorces were granted due to infidelity or STD.⁶⁰ In the UK and USA, the number of divorces initiated by men rose after the war but in Finland the trend was the opposite.⁶¹ In Helsinki between 1945 and 1950, women were the initiators in 62–65% of divorce cases.⁶²

The CSC’s infidelity cases mostly occurred during wartime.⁶³ Pastor Voitto Viro pointed out that it was remarkable that, even in marriages lasting 25–30 years, the problems emerged in wartime or after the war.⁶⁴ Sonja Hagelstam examined in her dissertation how the battle front and the home front were continuously connected through the exchange of letters during the years of separation. Hagelstam concludes that letter writing therefore contributed to the survival of family ties during the wartime separation.⁶⁵ However, given the increase in divorces, it seems that, for some reservist families, the separations were too much.

In many cases, infidelity was claimed to have been unintentional: an ‘accident’. When the war ended and the infidelity was exposed, returning soldiers explained to their wives that they regretted their behaviour. In some cases the return to home was claimed to be an experience which made them realize how attached they still were to their wives.⁶⁶ There were also cases in which returning husbands showed less regret: one soldier explained to the counsellor that in the war he had experienced enough of the serious aspects of life, and now he just wanted to have some fun.⁶⁷ In another case, a wife explained that after her previously shy and retiring husband was promoted to captain, he gained new self-esteem. After his promotion the husband also started to receive admiration from other women. Finally, her husband openly started to date other women.⁶⁸

Reunions were also overshadowed by men’s increased inclination to drink. During the years 1944–1946, the number of arrests for being drunk in a public place rose by almost 100%, from 75,000 to 140,000 (see Figure 3).⁶⁹ In Helsinki in 1944, there were 11,360 arrests for drinking in a public place, but in the following year the number of arrests rose to 26,826 and continued high in the following years.⁷⁰ In 1945, about one-third of all registered alcoholics, approximately 1,500, were estimated to be living in Helsinki. Contemporaries also estimated the number of drug users in Helsinki immediately after the war to be between 400 and 500 persons.⁷¹ On the whole, about 5,000 alcoholics were assumed to be living in Helsinki.⁷²

FIGURE 3 Drunken men in Helsinki at the corner of Albertinkatu and Pursimiehenkatu streets. Picture taken in the 1950s. Source: Museum of Helsinki.

Drinking problems were deemed deleterious because drunkenness and violent behaviour were seen to be interconnected. Most of the post-war crimes were property offences and thefts and robberies, yet there were also quite dramatic increases in violent crimes, such as crimes against individuals (e.g. minor assualts). In 1944 there were 1,054 crimes against individuals, but in the following years this rose to 1,957.⁷³ There is some anecdotal evidence that some former frontline soldiers were easily provoked and used aggression to solve problems.⁷⁴

The proliferation of divorces on grounds of a spouse’s harmful behaviour also seem to indicate how troubled marriages and family life were in the immediate aftermath of the war in Finland.⁷⁵Between 1940 and 1943, the number of divorces on grounds of spousal violence was 11; however, between 1944 and 1946, the number of cases rose to 73.⁷⁶ Divorce statistics, however, are a problematic source. In 1929 the divorce laws ordained that when divorce was granted on grounds of spousal violence, the violence had to be lethal and persistent. Therefore the absolute number of divorce cases may be misleading. Court judges themselves suspected that there was more domestic violence than the divorce statistics would suggest.⁷⁷

In the cases analysed, there are numerous mentions of spousal violence. When dealing with problems related to a husband’s drinking, the pastors calculated that half of the clients were afraid to ask the pastors to contact the husbands. The reason for this was that the wives feared reprisals on the part of their husbands.⁷⁸ In the worst cases, the wives were beaten so badly that they had to go to hospital.⁷⁹ Although Lutheran pastors were keen to safeguard the permanency of marriage, in cases of spousal violence and abuse divorce was seen as an acceptable solution. Pastors argued that it would have been ‘heartless’ and ‘cruel’ to advise clients to continue living with abusive spouses.⁸⁰

When discussing the prevalence of spousal violence, the marriage counsellors usually connected the reasons to the increase in drinking. The fact that some men returned from the war ‘changed’ was acknowledged, but the violence itself was not explained by war experiences. However, pastors discussed in some detail the idea that war might ‘brutalize’ men. In the book Don’t Keep to the Rails, published by brothers-in-arms pastors, for example, Pastor Martti Simojoki stated that at the front there was less room for mental or spiritual values.⁸¹ Compared to some other nations, however, there were no widespread concerns that war might have brutalized Finnish men.⁸² When the newspapers were releasing news about violent crimes, sometimes it was mentioned that the perpetrators were ex-servicemen. In the men’s magazine Adam (Aatami in Finnish), veterans perpretrating crimes were labelled as ‘hooligans’, who were far from ‘true frontline soldiers’.⁸³ In Finland, soldier-citizens were supposed be tough and self-sacrificing and veterans were in general expected to act morally and to preserve the frontline legacy.⁸⁴

Within the private spheres of the family, some veterans seemed to continue their fighting. There were several cases in the counselling records in which husbands’ violent behaviour was at least partially linked to their wartime experiences or injuries. Some invalids faced problems adjusting to their injuries and losses and were embittered and had shattered nerves.⁸⁵ There were several unemployed veterans, who, at least in the eyes of the counsellor, seemed to be ashamed of being dependent on their wives’ earnings. Some wives living with relatives after the war were also disappointed that their husbands were not able to offer them a home of their own. It may be that some men were attempting to reassert their masculinity by controlling their families in harsh ways.⁸⁶

Svenja Goltermann has observed that, in Germany during the immediate post-war years, ‘family members did not usually identify war experience as a crucial factor accounting for the allegedly strange behavior they perceived in the men who returned from the war’.⁸⁷ In the context of CSC counselling, sometimes husbands’ behaviour was directly attributed to their war experiences and injuries. Some women clients explained that their husbands were ‘shaken up’ during the war and had become more aggressive,⁸⁸ and some appeared to still be disoriented.⁸⁹ One husband became easily irritated after experiencing a serious head wound.⁹⁰ Another returnee soldier with no problems with drinking, experienced ‘unpredictable outbursts of rage’, which led to beating his wife once or twice a week.⁹¹

Ville Kivimäki has explained that ‘shaken up’ already became an established term among the troops during the Winter War (1939–1940). The term referred to those soldiers who had lost their nerve or sanity in war.⁹² Kivimäki has noted that ‘calling the psychologically injured soldiers shaken up was not without pity and understanding, but it was also an exclusionary term, separating the broken from the rest’.⁹³

Due to their wartime experiences, former military chaplains were somewhat familiar with shaken up men. During the war of 1941–1944, there were approximately 500 military chaplains in an army of over 500,000 men.⁹⁴ The number of pastors on the home front was twice that of chaplains, approximately 1,000, and 280 military chaplains were positioned among the fighting troops, one of them being the Pastor Voitto Viro, leader of CSC marital counselling.⁹⁵ On the frontline, the military chaplains were usually stationed at dressing stations (joukkosidontapaikka in Finnish). Especially during 1941 and in the summer of 1944, military chaplains shared many stressful, emotional, and harsh experiences with fighting troops, but also in field and military hospitals (see Figure 4).⁹⁶ During the hostilities of 1941–1944, some 160,000 soldiers were wounded and 94,000 men sustained permanent injuries.⁹⁷ In his field diary, Pastor Viro described an incident in which he participated in taking care of a soldier, who, due to ‘excruciating nervous tension’, had gone out of his mind and refused to eat because he feared the food was poisoned.⁹⁸ Viro also reflected on how he himself feared losing his nerve during artillery fire.⁹⁹ Matti Ponteva, in his epidemiological study of the Finnish soldiers’ psychiatric diseases in 1941–1944, calculated that, altogether, around 15,700 soldiers were treated in the army hospitals for psychiatric reasons during the hostilities of 1941–1944.¹⁰⁰

FIGURE 4 A military chaplain preaching near Uhtua, Russian Karelia. Date unknown. Source: SA-Kuva 129,561, Ministry of Defence.

Some of the military chaplains were also stationed in field hospitals, in which they worked alongside medical officers and medics. Approximately one-fifth of all military chaplains were ordered to military hospitals.¹⁰¹ The first leaders of the marriage guidance offices in the cities of Tampere (Matti Joensuu) and Helsinki (Aarne Siirala) both worked closely with war invalids.¹⁰² Siirala was also involved during the hostilities of 1941–1944 in an association called War Invalids’ Mental Care (Sotainvalidien henkinen huolto in Finnish), which tried to advance the pastoral treatment of war invalids and veterans suspected of suffering from mental disorders.¹⁰³

It may be that close collaboration with medical officers and doctors introduced them to the ‘language of nerves’. Like wives, counselling pastors sometimes suspected that some men were mentally ill or otherwise acting strangely. Pastors on call made notes that a client seemed likely to be a ‘psychopath’,¹⁰⁴ was ‘slightly abnormal’,¹⁰⁵ or that ‘nerves seemed to be somewhat strained. Cried quite easily’.¹⁰⁶ When pastors were ‘diagnosing’ their male clients, they did not use medical terms pejoratively; at least not in my reading. They were more stating conditions as a matter of fact. Many of the chaplains identified with the men during the war and came to appreciate the frontline ethic and feeling of comradeship.¹⁰⁷ Because most of the military chaplains were quite young, 80% of them were 25–35 years old, this may have helped them to bond with fighting troops.¹⁰⁸ When they suspected mental illnesses, counsellors tried to offer their clients some assistance. They provided referrals to professional helpers or requested consultations from psychiatrists working with marriage guidance counsellors.

Many of the men’s psychosocial problems were probably war-related, but it is impossible to estimate to what extent war exacerbated men’s drinking or aggression, for example. However, many of the wives emphasized how good their men had been before the war. It seems that drinking itself may also have increased mental illnessess. In 1945, the number of patients admitted to the psychiatric observation ward in Helsinki due to alcoholism was twice that of the pre-war years. The cases, which also included ‘psychopathic reactions caused by alcohol’, amounted to more than 60% of the total 1,412 admissions that year.¹⁰⁹

3. ‘Be patient, kind, tolerant and keep silent and things might improve’

When clients decided to seek help from the CSC’s marital guidance, they were usually very distressed. As one of the counselling pastors said in their joint meetings, clients come to us ‘shy, tormented and anguished’.¹¹⁰ During the years 1945–1946, women accounted for 65% of the clients. Some of these felt that they were crying over nothing at all, sometimes hysterically.¹¹¹ From the viewpoint of stress research, it seems that the accumulation of stressors produced elevated levels of psychological distress in clients and challenged their coping skills and resources.¹¹²

In their internal work meetings, counsellors discussed how they could encourage clients to seek help earlier. Pirjo Markkola, in her article on the institutionalization of marital counselling, states that counsellors, in their advertisements, stressed the fact that services were offered by young, homecoming clergy. By emphasizing their military service, counsellors articulated that, as counsellors, they could understand other men having problems.¹¹³ I would also stress that, in their advertisements, they noted that help from the lawyers and doctors was also available. Despite their efforts to lower the threshold for seeking help, the majority of clients came when the marriage was already failing or when their personal wellbeing was threatened. Pastor Voitto Viro estimated that in 10–20% of cases they could help clients to reunite the troubled home.¹¹⁴

Listening was one of the basic communication skills required in marital guidance.¹¹⁵ By offering clients an opportunity to speak about difficult personal matters, the counsellors tried to facilitate clients’ personal efforts to make sense of their situations.¹¹⁶ The manner of speaking also seemed to be important to the counsellors. In the war, preaching from the pulpit was already deemed to be ineffective and chaplains transformed their method of addressing men towards more personal and ordinary language that men could relate to.

The counsellors also tried to understand the meaning of body language of both the client and themselves. Counsellors argued in their internal meetings that however terrible the clients’ stories were, they should be able to control their emotions and facial expressions.¹¹⁷ In their guidance, pastors also emphasized the meaning of nonverbal communication. In many cases, a variety of problems was also linked to the clients’ sex lives. Especially when such matters were discussed, pastors were supposed to behave very discreetly, even the smallest of gestures might be misinterpreted by their clients.¹¹⁸ In general, sexuality was a difficult topic for many pastors.¹¹⁹

Marital problems were also analysed in terms of regulation of emotions. Nagging and losing one’s temper could also make things worse. Clients sometimes shamefully confessed to losing their tempers.¹²⁰ To prevent conflicts, counsellors asked wives to ‘be patient, kind, tolerant and keep silent and things might improve’.¹²¹ In the counsellors’ analyses, husbands in particular had some common personality traits, such as an inability to control impulses and a propensity to get angry, which made communication and family life difficult.¹²²

Current research on post-traumatic stress has pointed out that the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) include anger and irritability, and this could suggest that, at least in some cases, men may have been suffering from symptoms similar to those of PTSD.¹²³ From the 34,000 soldiers who took part in the hostilities from 1941 to 1944 and returned to Helsinki, as many as 1,000 received treatment during that time for their war-related psychiatric problems.¹²⁴ Matti Ponteva has shown that 28% of these patients also received treatment for their psychiatric problems after the war.¹²⁵ In addition, there were as many as 600 soldiers from Helsinki who suffered from traumatic brain injuries. Jaakko J. Ranta-Knuuttila has pointed out that invalids suffering from severe brain injuries usually had difficulties readjusting to work and family life. When external demands overtaxed their coping capabilities, this led to a variety of physical and mental symptons, including anxiety, depression, hostile reactions, and substance abuse.¹²⁶

Irmeli Hännikäinen has claimed that when war invalids’ wives were able to find meaning in their troubles, they found it much easier to cope. Although living with a severely injured husband was hard, many women felt it was their duty to cope with difficulties and to take care of these men, who had risked their lives and sacrificed their health during the war.¹²⁷ Examination of the counselling records shows that many of the wives were struggling to find meaning in living with a husband whose behaviour had changed for the worse during the war and who had, for example, become verbally and physically abusive. Yet, for months they even endured abusive behaviour. In attempting to cope with such situations, some women themselves became upset, feeling tired and anxious. In many cases, women with ‘worn-out nerves’ were also seeking help for themselves.¹²⁸

The marriage counsellors acknowledged the difficulty of women’s life situations.¹²⁹ One of the most typical activities in counselling was to help clients find meaning for their suffering and imbue them with hope. Usually counsellors, by referring to the Bible, attempted to say something that would bring solace. The providence of God was emphasized and clients were asked to trust in God and His intentions. However, Pastor Matti Joensuu stated that religious comfort should not be turned into preaching if a client was not asking for it.¹³⁰ Typically, clients were asked to ‘bear their crosses’ and they were asked to believe that God would make good come out of their terrible situation.¹³¹ In many ways pastoral care reflected their work as military chaplains, in which they had to help soldiers cope with suffering.¹³² Counselling sessions usually ended with a prayer, in which this matter was also given into the hands of God.

In cases of infidelity, counsellors typically identified spouse's unwillingness to put an end to the affairs as the main obstacle to reconciliation in the marriage. If counsellors were able to make a connection with the ‘guilty partner’, usually the husband, his story was also heard. Sometimes attempts were made to contact the third party and ask her to withdraw from the affair. Usually the counsellors tried to open men’s eyes and make them realize the irresponsibility of their behaviour and encourage them to listen the voice of their conscience and God. In their public writing and commentaries, the clergy also appealed to men and their sense of manhood. In his book, On Divorce, Bishop Gulin stated, in the context of marital troubles, that ‘to became a deserter before an attempt to fight seriously, is cowardly’.¹³³ Pastors relied on wartime rhetoric, and in this specific case true manliness was identified with military masculinity, which was based on bravery and unselfishess.

When husbands’ infidelity was discovered, wives usually experienced feelings of betrayal, hurt, and mistrust. Men seeking to salvage their marriages usually felt guilt and shame. For most of the women, it was hard to forgive their man’s behaviour although they wanted to.¹³⁴ Before the war, many of the clients’ marriages were reportedly happy or satisfactory, and although the men were involved in extramarital affairs, emotional bonds between the couples did not disappear immediately. In some cases the realization of a husband’s infidelity was so hurtful that it led to feelings of depression and anxiety.¹³⁵ Wives were quite often encouraged to forgive their husbands, as ‘we were all sinners’.¹³⁶ This thinking is reflected the Lutheran doctrine of two kingdoms and the idea of original sin, in which all human beings were seen as weak sinners.¹³⁷

In their public speeches in particular, marriage counsellors insisted that, although ‘exceptional conditions’ and ‘dispersal of families’ destabilized married life, the real problem was the fragmentation of the human, the widening gap between humanity and eternity.¹³⁸ Some of the counsellors were not afraid to challenge clients’ views; they were seen to be too self-centred. This fitted well with the prevailing Finnish national narratives of post-war reconstruction. Antero Holmila has argued that the culturally constructed and symbolically ordered narratives of ‘survival’, ‘sacrifice’, and ‘self-control’ made up a normative framework in which the meaning of Finland’s post-war transition from war to peace was given. This framework offered the Finns moral guidelines and lessons from the past as to what to do in order to successfully return to peace. Jouni Tilli has also concluded that after the armistice the Lutheran clergy used the rhetoric of responsibility and obedience in order to help people adapt to the new political situation.¹³⁹ However, in private counselling, clients were treated with more understanding and compassion. Although counsellors sometimes challenged clients’ views, the wellbeing of clients was valued.

It is difficult to estimate how clients perceived the pastoral care. Clients sought reconciliation of the marriage usually not only because of existing emotional bonds but also for the sake of their children. Quite surprisingly, in the cases studied there were few mentions of economic reasons for staying together. Sometimes forgiveness yielded positive results, and couples were able to reconcile.¹⁴⁰ What made marital troubles especially difficult was that families were seldom dealing with only one or two problems. Infidelity and drinking were strains on the marriages, but so also were poor housing conditions, homelessness, and the scarcity of everyday necessities. Coping with inadequate housing was a constant struggle and required of the families a considerable amount of work and resources.

In the counselling sessions, wives were positioned as carers better able to manage their emotions than were their husbands. Marriage required work and effort, and wives were expected to take major responsibility for the emotional work. Pastoral counsellors employed quite tradional conceptions about appropriate gender roles in their counselling, although husbands also were expected to take responsibility for keeping the marriage alive and satisfying.¹⁴¹ Ideas of essential, natural differences between the sexes were deep-seated in the Finnish gender system, and were also apparent in the marriage guidance practices.¹⁴²

4. Marriage guidance and the problem of the returning soldier

This article has discussed the question of how married couples tried cope with often enormous challenges of adjustment brought about by the end of war. In Finland, family reunifications and problems related to the physical and social surroundings of families posed severe challenges of adjustment to tens of thousands of families. However, both new and old marriages were strained by spousal infidelity and changed behaviour. The infidelity and problematic behaviour of the returning men posed new, difficult challenges of adjustment and forgiveness, especially for their wives.

The main finding of the article is that, even in Helsinki, where divorces were most common, there was quite a large population of married people who were willing to endure even severe hardships and continued living in problematic marriages. In the majority of marriage guidance cases, divorce was not looked upon as an easy option. In a considerable number of marriages, the wives in particular tried to adjust their marital expectations to the general developments in personal life and society.¹⁴³ For many of the older marriages, it seems as if wives primarily saw divorce as means of personal survival rather than as a way to achieve personal happiness, and that this was the case even in an urban setting such as Helsinki. Many of the wives studied seem to have internalized the prevailing cultural narratives of ‘survival’, ‘sacrifice’, and ‘self-control’. The wives of returning soldiers were trying to adjust their marital expectations to the new situation and ‘normality’. However, as already mentioned, because the couples studied sought help from marriage guidance counsellors voluntarily, they may not be representative of the couples experiencing marital problems as a whole. Furthermore, although one-third of the clients were young couples representing ‘hasty wartime marriages’, the typical age of the CSC’s counselling clients during years 1945–1946 was 37 years. It may be that younger couples in general were more prone to seek quick, fault-based divorce, as earlier research also suggests.

When spouses sought help from the marriage guidance centres, the advice offered and the pastoral care were focused on strengthening their spiritual wellbeing and skills of adaptation and emotional regulation. Pastors could not change the conditions of their clients’ lives, but they tried to advise women on how to handle conflict situations and how to address problems in life. Sometimes more tangible help was offered and clients were referred, for example, to the social welfare services. In the case of older marriages, children, emotional bonds, and economic necessity kept families together; at least for some time. Eventually the accumulation of stressors produced elevated levels of psychological distress and taxed couples’ coping skills and resources. For most of the women studied, the path to abandoning a marriage was usually emotional, long, and painful.

Because marital guidance counsellors were mostly former military chaplains who served together with medical officers and medics, their wartime experiences and bonding with fighting troops affected how they perceived the nature of marital problems in the aftermath of war. Pastors were capable of recognizing the adjustment problems of returning soldiers. However, because of the prevalence of infidelity cases, women became the main recipients of pastoral care and consolation. Former military and hospital pastors were experienced in working with suffering soldiers, but, in peacetime, women became the main recipients of their care and guidance.

The violent nature of post-war family life shocked many of the counsellors. Pastor Voitto Viro, the leader of the CSC marital guidance service, claimed that the general public did not seem to understand how difficult the living conditions of many families were.¹⁴⁴ In 1946, during the yearly celebration of the ‘Week of Home’, the CSC put into circulation an article in which spousal violence was addressed and condemned. It was stated to be very unfortunate that a Finnish man seems to beat his his wife often.¹⁴⁵ The pastors also discussed whether the 1929 divorce law was too strict when the grounds for divorce were based on spousal violence. Regarding narcotics problems, too, the grounds for divorce seemed to be too harsh: divorce was legitimate only when the drug problem was stated by professionals to be pathological and untreatable.¹⁴⁶

It was not entirely irrelevant what kind of advice people received when seeking help from the marital counsellors. During the period 1945–1946, the main focus in counselling was on the wives. The CSC marriage counselling model was intended to promote the stability of the family. They stated that even the most difficult marital troubles could be overcome if only couples relied on the providence of God and were ready to transform themselves into unselfish and serving Christians. Wives were asked to show forgiveness and endure the hardships of strained marriages.

However, although the Lutheran pastors were determined to safeguard the sanctity of marriage, when the wellbeing of a client was threatened, divorce was sometimes even suggested.¹⁴⁷ If marriage and home life had turned ‘into hell’, divorce was presented as an acceptable option. Moreover, the needs of children had to be recognized. More research is still needed into how different professional groups tried to help people suffering from a variety of adjustment problems in the aftermath of war, and how these activities affected people’s wellbeing.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers, as well as Academy Research Fellow Jari Eilola, Professor Petri Karonen, Professor Pirjo Markkola, Senior Researcher Olli Matikainen, Post-doctoral Researcher Pasi Saarimäki, and Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Jouni Tilli, for their comments and helpfulness.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by The Finnish Centre of Excellence in Historical Research, Re-thinking Finland [1400–2000].

Notes on contributors

Antti Malinen

Antti Malinen is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä. He is currently working on a new research project on returning war veterans’ psychosocial problems and their effect on families (1945–1955). Address: Department of History and Ethnology,University of Jyväskylä, Seminaarinkatu 15, 40014 Jyväskylän yliopisto, Finland.  [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1 Pastor Olavi Castrén in a church periodical Vartija, 1947, 34. See Castrén, ‘Teologin mietteitä’.

2 Sihvo, Avioliitto ja avioero; Haapanen, Kirkko ottaa kantaa, 10–11; Markkola, ‘Marriage Counselling’.

3 On the meaning of family as a stabilizing force, see Chettiar, ‘Treating Marriage’, 270; Langhamer, The English in Love, 10; Betts and Crawley, ‘Introduction’; Mazower, Dark Continent, 227; Lewis, ‘Public Institutions and Private Relationships’, 262.

4 Shapira, War Inside, 1; Rose, Governing the Soul, 163–76; Herzog, Sexuality in Europe, 100–6.

5 Markkola, ‘Marriage Counselling’; Jarvis, ‘If He Comes Home Nervous’; Jo Plant, ‘The Veteran, His Wife’.

6 Cf. Goltermann, Die Gesellschaft.

7 Cf. Markkola, ‘Focusing on the Family’, 4.

8 Wieviorka et al., ‘Conclusion’; Chester, ‘Conclusion’, 300.

9 Kristiansen, ‘Norway’, 59.

10 Soikkanen, ‘Sosiaaliset olosuhteet’, 154.

11 In the case of Norway, data is available only for the years 1946–1955.

12 Tunkelo, ‘Lisääntyneet avioerot ja niiden seuraukset’, 3–4; Nieminen, ‘Avioerojen yleistymisen syistä’, 527–30.

13 Allardt, Miljöbetingade differenser i skilsmässofrekvensen; Anntila, ‘Finland’; Koskelo, Avioerot; Näre, ‘Kuin viimeistä päivää’. See Tarjamo and Karonen, ‘Kun sota on ohi – Loppusanat’, 394–5, on the review on earlier research considering post-war marital and family problems.

14 See Viro, ‘Särkyviä koteja eheytynyt’.

15 Statistical information is drawn from Sipilä, Kirkon perheneuvontatyö Suomessa, Appendix. Sipilä divides clients into four separate social groups (I–IV), according to the criteria developed by the Statistical Office of Helsinki (Helsingin tilastokeskus in Finnish).

16 Sipilä, ‘Kirkon perheneuvontatyö Suomessa’, Appendix, Table 10. Sipilä, in his study on the development of Finnish marriage guidance, warns that the keeping of statistics was incomplete. In over half of the cases studied, there was no mentions of the length of the marriage.

17 Sipilä, ‘Kirkon perheneuvontatyö Suomessa’, Appendix, Table 6.

18 Clark, ‘Guidance, Counselling, Therapy’, provides interesting analysis on the social construction of ‘marital problems’ within the context of National Marriage Guidance Council (UK). See also Kollind, ‘History of Family Counselling’.

19 Kirves, ‘Elämä omiin käsiin’; Betts and Crowley, ‘Introduction’, 215–16.

20 Wieviorka et al., ‘Conclusion’, 214.

21 See Tunkelo, ‘Sota-avioliitot avioerotilaston valossa’. Researchers have found similar patterns in other European countries and in North America. See Chester, ‘Conclusion’, 298–9; Goode, World Changes in Divorce Patterns, 84, 139; Phillips, Putting Asunder, 585; Sandström, ‘Time-Space Trends’, 69–73.

22 HTV, Helsingin tilastollinen vuosikirja, Table 36, 35.

23 Tunkelo, ‘Sota-avioliitot avioerotilaston valossa’; Sihvo, Avioliitto ja avioero, 20; Anntila, ‘Finland’; Näre, ‘Kuin viimeistä päivää’, 336.

24 Dissolution of war marriages is dealth with some details in Soikkanen, ‘Sosiaaliset olosuhteet’, 156–7.

25 Markkola, ‘Focusing on the Family’; Kivimäki, ‘Battled Nerves’. See also Tarjamo and Karonen, ‘Kun sota on ohi’. On the difficulty of using the trauma concept in historical study see Goltermann, ‘On Silence’, 93–4.

26 E.g. Hytönen, Ei elämääni lomia mahtunut; Kujala, ‘Sodan pojat’.

27 See, however, Uino, Sotiemme veteraanit. There are also several studies on wounded servicemen’s adjustment to society, e.g. Ranta-Knuuttila, Sodan aivovammaiset; Ranta-Knuuttila, Amputoitu sotavammainen. Irja Wendisch has dealt with some details of how relationships between returning soldiers and their children evolved in the aftermath of the war. See Wendisch, Me sotilaiden lapset; Wendisch, Pitkä taistelu.

28 Hännikäinen, Vaimot sotainvalidien rinnalla. Earlier, too, more social political research has studied the adjustment of war invalids, but the role of wives receives only limited attention. See, e.g., Ranta-Knuuttila, Amputoitu sotavammainen.

29 See Hornung, ‘An Austrian Married Couple’, who has investigated how post-war reunions have been remembered in later life.

30 Kivimäki, Battled Nerves. In his work, Kivimäki also investigated how encounters between patients and psychiatrists can be seen as one instance of institutionalized power in the service of the nation-state. See also Hännikäinen, Sota ihmisessä; Shephard, A War of Nerves.

31 On a similar approach, cf. Cohen, Family Secrets; Vaizey, Surviving Hitler’s War; Goltermann, Die Gesellschaft der Überlebenden.

32 To the best of my knowledge only Sipilä, ‘Kirkon perheneuvontatyö Suomessa’, has used the material, but only to gather statistical information about counselling cases.

33 On the notion of rendering service (diakonia) and the rise of the Neo-Folk Church Movement, see Lauha, ‘Martti Simojoki’; Huhta and Malkavaara, Suomen kirkon sisälähetysseuran historia. See also Markkola, ‘Marriage Counselling’.

34 Pastors on call did not make notes on all client sessions.

35 See Annual Report of 1946, Hf:1. Cf. Joensuu, Perheiden kanssa naimisissa, 112. Statistical information on the nature of counselling has been retrieved from the annual reports of the marriage guidance centre and from Sipilä, ‘Kirkon perheneuvontatyö Suomessa’, on the marriage guidance work of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

36 Anntila has pointed out that divorce legislation was based partly on the principle of guilt and partly on the principle of marital discord. The grounds for divorce in the 1929 Marriage Act were ‘adultery, venereal disease contracted during the marriage, assault or attempted homicide by husband or wife, imprisonment for at least three years, conviction for an offence making the spouse the object of special contempt, misuse of intoxicating substances and wilful abandonment for at least one year’. See Anntila, ‘Finland’, 12.

37 Most of the research on spousal violence in Finnish context concentrates on the 19th century or early 20th century. See, e.g., Rajala, Kurittajia ja puukkosankareita. Paul Betts has studied the post-war marital life of East Berlin in detail and concludes that domestic violence became one the main reasons for filing for divorce in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. See Betts, Within Walls, 94–5.

38 Kujala, ‘Sodan pojat’. On the history of the wartime childhood and youth in general, see the four-volume work Weilin and Göös, Sodassa koettua.

39 Cf. Vaizey, Surviving Hitler’s War, 4, 13.

40 Cf. Fahrni, Household Politics, 189.

41 Donzelot, Policing of Families, ch. 5.

42 See Antikainen, ‘Demokratian synnystä’, 98, 133–4. Cf. Kollind, ‘History of Family Counselling’.

43 On earlier research, see Kruus, Potilaan ja teologin keskustelu; Viika, Kirkon perheneuvonnan viisi vuosikymmentä; Kettunen, ‘Kehittyvä sielunhoito’; Hakala, ‘Learning by Caring’, 11. Cf. Kivivuori, Psykokirkko; Kulhia, Uutta, vanhaa ja lainattua. See also Helén and Yesilova, ‘Shepherding Desire’.

44 Arja-Liisa Räisänen, in her dissertation, studied marriage and sexual advice manuals published between 1865 and 1920. See Räisänen, Onnellisen avioliiton ehdot.

45 On theological education, see Kruus, Potilaan ja teologin keskustelu; Joensuu, Perheiden kanssa naimisissa. On the experience of working as a military chaplain, see Tilli, Continuation War; Bergen, ‘German Military Chaplains’.

46 Jouni Tilli has studied how pastoral power was enacted within encounters between military chaplains and frontline troops. Tilli, Continuation War. See also Tuomi, Sanoja kärsimykseen.

47 Cf. Pietikäinen, Neurosis and Modernity, 352.

48 Virolainen, ‘Suomen siirtoväen ongelma’, 13.

49 Over 10% invalid rating.

50 See Malinen, Perheet ahtaalla.

51 In the Finnish context, see Haikari, ‘Kun sota loppuu’; Holmila, ‘Jälleenrakentamisen narratiivit’. In international comparison, see Hartmann, ‘Prescriptions for Penelope’, 224; Plant, ‘The Veteran, His Wife’.

52 Sipilä, ‘Kirkon perheneuvontatyö Suomessa’, appendices.

53 Cf. Sandström, ‘Time-Space Trends’, 73.

54 Annual report of 1945, Hf:1.

55 E.g. Case 255, 25.10.1945.

56 Eg. Case 96, 28.3.1945; Case 98, 3.4.1945; Case 104, 7.3.1945; Case 110, 5.4.1945; Case 356, 3.5.1946; Case 371, 17.6.1946.

57 Case 314; 4.2.1946; Case 44, 14.2.1945.

58 See, e.g., Case 5 8, 20.2.1945; Case 155, 24.5.1945; Case 157, 25.5.1945.

59 See, e.g., Case 65, 22.1945.

60 See HTV, Helsingin tilastollinen vuosikirja, Table 36, 34.

61 See, e.g., Simmons, Making Marriage Modern, 221. On the development in East Germany, see Betts, Within Walls, 96; cf. Sandström, ‘Time-Space Trends’, 81.

62 HTV 1948, Table 40, 40; Ollila, Maaseutu-kaupunki-erotus, 70.

63 See pastor Voitto Viro’s diary, 1.10.1945, Hf:1.

64 Viro, ‘Avioliiton hätä’, 9.

65 Hagelstam, ’Röster från kriget’. Cf. Vaizey, Surviving Hitler’s War.

66 See, e.g., Case 18, 29.1.1945; Case 23., 31.1.1945.

67 Case 4, 25.1.1945.

68 Case 36, 7.2.1945.

69 Stenius, ‘Problematic Intoxications’, 544. Control of drinking in public also became stricter in the post-war period, and this has to be noted when statistics are interpreted.

70 HTV, Helsingin tilastollinen vuosikirja, Table 140, 141.

71 Ylikangas, Unileipää, kuolonvettä, spiidiä; Stenius, ‘Problematic Intoxications’, 544. Cf. Jokivartio, ‘Om missbruket av heroin’. According to Jokivartio, the police estimated that around 200 people were taking heroin on a daily basis.

72 Toivola, ‘Juoppous numeroiden valossa’, 61.

73 HTV 1946/1947, Table 155, 157.

74 Kivimäki, ‘Hämärä horisontti, avautuvat tulevaisuudet’.

75 Cf. Puosi, Avioerot Turussa; Nieminen, Särkyneiden sydänten sota.

76 See HTV, Helsingin tilastollinen vuosikirja, Table 36, 34.

77 Westerlund, Saksalaisten sotilaiden lapset, 29. Westerlund calls attention to the view of Judge J. F. Selin of the Helsinki jurisdiction about the violence and drinking underlying divorces.

78 Annual Report of 1945, Hf:1. Cf. Joensuu, ‘Alkoholi ja avioerot’, 163.

79 See Case 276, 16.11.1945; Case 312, 4.2.1946.

80 Acceptable reasons for divorce were discussed in counselling pastors’ internal meetings; see, e.g., Meeting 11.3.1945, Hf:1, Christian Center of Services; See also Gulin, Avioero, 43; Gulin and Niemi, Avioliitto, 176.

81 Simojoki, ‘Henkisten tekijäin merkitys elämäntaistelussa’, 117–18; Tenkku, Alaston ihminen murrosajan kuvastimessa.

82 Bourke, ‘Going Home’, 154; Dale, Re-Adjusting to Life after War, 19.

83 Aatami 1945:1, 3.

84 Ahlbäck and Kivimäki, ‘Masculinities at War’.

85 See Case 208, 24.7.1945.

86 Cf. Muir, The Hidden Cost of War, 309.

87 Goltermann, On silence, 101.

88 e.g. Case 195, 3.7.1945; Case 252, 17.10.1945.

89 e.g. Case 249, 10.10.1945; Case 303, 18.1.1946.

90 Case 30, 6.2.1945.

91 Case 91, 26.3.1945; see also Case 349, 24.4.1946.

92 See Kivimäki, ‘Battled Nerves’, 191.

93 Kivimäki, ‘Battled Nerves’, 194.

94 The number of Finnish military chaplains is quite high. In Germany, around 1,000 military chaplains served during the Second World War. See Bergen. ‘German Military Chaplains’, 166.

95 Tilli, Continuation War, 12. Former military chaplains emphasized the new connection between themselves and the men. See, e.g., Korhonen and Nokkala, ‘Lukijalle’, 5.

96 In his memoirs, Matti Joensuu remembers that, when he was working at military hospital 13. at Viipuri in 1941, the whole hospital was working under a heavy workload. He felt that, after six months of heavy work, his own health deteriorated and he fell ill. Joensuu, Perheiden kanssa naimisissa, 72–3. Cf. Kivimäki and Tepora, ‘Meaningless Death’, 270.

97 Honkasalo, Suomalainen sotainvalidi, appendices.

98 Viro, Korsupappina Syvärille, 87.

99 E.g. Viro, Korsupappina syvärille, 56, 85.

100 Ponteva, Psykiatriset sairaudet Suomen puolustusvoimissa, 45.

101 Viro, Korsupappina syvärille, 20; Palosuo, ‘Tulevaisuuden kirkko – miesten kirkko?’, 161; Tuunainen, ‘The Finnish Army at War’, 178.

102 See Tuomisto, Hengellinen työ sotainvalidien parissa, 22, 27; Joensuu, Perheiden kanssa naimisissa, 63–9.

103 Tuomisto, Hengellinen työ sotainvalidien parissa.

104 E.g. Case 87, 20.3.1945; Case 175, 8.6.1945; Case 176, 8.6.1945.

105 Case 183, 19.6.1945.

106 Case 24, 31.1.1945.

107 See Kuoppala, Sotapapit kovan ajan koulussa, on how former military chaplains remember their years with frontline troops. Cf. Kivimäki and Tepora, ‘War of Hearts’.

108 Tuomi, Sanoja kärsimykseen, 14. Cf. Donner, ‘Experience of War Psychiatry’, 500. The leaders of the first marriage guidance services in Tampere and Helsinki, former military chaplains Matti Joensuu (1915–2003), Aarne Siirala (1919–1991), and Voitto Viro (1914–1999), were in their twenties and thirties.

109 Jokivartio and Helve, ‘Chronic Alcoholism’, 179.

110 Meeting 11.3.1945, Hf:1, Christian Center of Services.

111 See, e.g., Case 134, 28.5.1945.

112 Thoits, ‘Stress and Health’, 42.

113 Cf. Sandström, ‘Time-Space Trends’, 67

114 See Viro’s article on Helsingin Kirkkosanomat 26.10.1945, No 7, 1–2.

115 Joensuu, Perheiden kanssa naimisissa, 94. Cf. Chettiar, ‘Treating Marriage’, 272.

116 Joensuu. Perheiden kanssa naimisissa, 94. Cf. Cohen, Family Secrets, 216–17.

117 Pastor Viro’s diary 1.3.1945, Hf:1.

118 Pastor Viro’s diary 1.10.1945, Hf:1.

119 See Markkola, ‘Marriage Counselling’.

120 See Case 294, 21.12.1945.

121 Case 261, 24.10.1945.

122 See, e.g., Case 30, 6.2.1945; Case 147, 11.5.1945; Case 210, 25.7.1945; Case 213, 3.8.1945; Case 264, 26.10.1945; Case 271, 5.11.1945; Case 290, 12.12.1945; Case 313, 4.2.1946; Case 359, 30.4.1946.

123 E.g. Monson et al., ‘Military-Related PTSD’, 708. Cf. Goltermann, On Silence.

124 Close to 16,000 frontline soldiers received psychiatric treatment during the period 1941–1944 and approximately 13% of them were from the Helsinki and Uusimaa region. Overall, 34,000 men from Helsinki served in the army during the period 1941–1944. Kivimäki has estimated that as many as 1,000 men from Helsinki received psychiatric treatment in the period 1941–1944 (email exchange with Ville Kivimäki, 14 November 2013).

125 Ponteva, Psykiatriset sairaudet Suomen puolustusvoimissa, 136.

126 Ranta-Knuuttila, Sodan aivovammaiset, 18.

127 Hännikäinen, Vaimot sotainvalidien rinnalla.

128 See, e.g., Case 40, 12.2.1945.

129 See, e.g., Raitis ylioppilas 1945:2, interview with pastor Voitto Viro.

130 See Matti Joensuu’s letter exchange with colleague 9.5.1949, Fa:1.

131 Cf. Holmila, ‘Jälleenrakentamisen narratiivit’.

132 Cf. Tilli, Continuation War; Tuomi, Sanoja kärsimykseen.

133 Gulin, Avioero, 5.

134 See, e.g., Case 78, 9.3.1945; Case 79, 14.3.1945; Case 145, 8.5.1945; Case 274, 12.11.1945.

135 See, e.g., Case 105, 12.4.1945.

136 See Alaja, Uutta yhteyttä etsimässä, 17, on the typical argumentation.

137 See Markkola, ‘Focusing on the Family’, 69.

138 See, e.g., Voitto Viro’s interview in the periodicals Suomen Kuvalehti 1945:10, 303; Kotimaa, 1 May 1945.

139 Tilli, Continuation War, 170.

140 See, e.g., Case 295, 7.1.1946.

141 Cf. Lewis, Public Institutions and Private Relationships, 262.

142 Cf. Räisänen, Onnellisen avioliiton ehdot.

143 Cf. Phillips, Untying the Knot, 97–8, who has investigated the linkages between marital expectation and marital dissolution.

144 Viro, Aikamme avioliitto-ongelmia, 20.

145 See Viro’s diary, September 1946. Hf:1.

146 See Kotimaa 1 May 1945; Raitis Ylioppilas 1945:2.

147 See, e.g., Case 91, 26.3.1945.