Women Waiting for their Husbands Return

a painting by V. Kostecky titled 'Coming Home' which shows a russian soldier returng to his family after the war

V. Igoshev. Still waiting for her son

Wait for me by Konstantin Simonov was a poam written for his wife in 1941 that went on to be widley popular in the war.

Wait for me and I’ll return, only wait very hard.
Wait when you are filled with sorrow as you watch the yellow rain.
Wait when the wind sweeps the snowdrifts.
Wait in the sweltering heat.
Wait when others have stopped waiting, forgetting their yesterdays.
Wait even when from afar no letters come for you.
Wait even when others are tired of waiting.

Wait for me and I’ll return, but wait patiently.
Wait even when you are told that you should forget.
Wait even when my mother and son think I am no more.
And when friends sit around the fire drinking to my memory
Wait and do not hurry to drink to my memory too.

Wait for me and I’ll return, defying every death.
And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky.
They will never understand that in the midst of death
You with your waiting saved me.
Only you and I will know how I survived:
It was because you waited as no one else did.

ironicly Simonov's wife does not appear to have waited for him and in fact had an affair which was widley known.

"ironicly Simonov's wife does not appear to have waited for him and in fact had an affair which was widley known."

OMG, such a heartfelt poem. And how sad to know the woman it was written for did not wait.


Contemporary, but this gets me everytime. Many of us have soldiers away from home just now.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B4E2-FEO8M"]SUSAN BOYLE - RETURN - YouTube[/ame]

Obviously if she can't want for him to return home and has to go off with some other guy she's worthless and he should consider himself luckily that he didn't end up marrying someone with fake colors.

It makes me so angry.

Briseis said:

Lovely paintings and poem, IRISH, thanks. Do you know when she started her 'affair' and how long she waited for him to return?

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from reading through this is appears he chose his love of his country over that of his wife yet still loved her
Konstantin Simonov

this is perhaps shown in another of his poems

Don’t call it off - you must not spoil the evening!
What if for me you feel a special pain?
What if I loved you? What does it mean
That I shall never see your eyes again?
We gathered here as equals - only later
Fate gave you me alone when back I came,
But sitting in this room around this table
Our rights in you were equal and the same.
Later will be the time when you’ll remember.
Later, if need be, will be time for tears,
When, standing in the cold sheet at the window,
You’ll beg for mercy from the lonely years.
But now you must not spoil with tears and sorrow,
By grief for me deny the final right
To those who yet will go to war tomorrow,
And those, like me, who don’t return tonight


i believe a woman should remain fateful to her lover at war but i understand that can't be easy to go so long with no one and sometimes a long time without any letters. some veterans have expressed how they could never find the words to describe there daily lives so they didn't send any or were very basic in the information they sent, just a few lines on that they were in good health and were doing great. i don't remember who it was that gave this report but it was some british commander who when describing how his men were he said that many very low on moral mostly due to unfaithful wives back home who had left them for american troops.

Sheesh! My cousin's fiance serving in Afghanistan (bomb disposal) broke off their engagement apparently because he didn't want her putting her life in suspension on his account. She didn't take too well to the suggestion that she couldn't 'restrain herself' and wound up in turn accusing him of fishing for excuses to break it off. An almighty row broke out between them. You can't win either way it seems - she burnt off her frustration by hiking Kilimanjaro (for charity) and yet awaits the good man's return despite being given the 'green light' as it were.

Brisieis said:

How long should a woman had to have to wait before she could move on?

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Full length of the tour.

If you can't wait then clearly you don't love them.

I suppose now a days periods of being apart from each other are much shorter back say in the first World war the time away from your loved ones was a lot longer if they were lucky. It also not unknown for the men to play away from home also. Its only natural.

It is probably this sort of problem of the menfolk going away to fight that seems to have led to the tribe of the amazons , accordng to Jordane in his Getica c.560 giving the history of the Goths , he states the Goth women fought a battle with a neighbouring tribe and won , while their menfolk were away on a campaign against Pharaoh Vesosis ,
Presumably the women were trained to fight in order to retain their fidelity , as neighbouring tribes are likely to have known their menfolk had gone off to war. It seems the women got some confidence from this battle as afterwards , the women formed an army under Marpesa , crossed the river Don , and invaded parts of Asia.While her sister Lampero stayed in Europe guarding the homelands.

Queen Thalestra of the Amazons was reported to have visited Alexander and had a son by him , but when his second in command reported the rumour to Alexander he is said to have laughed and said ' and where was i when this happened '

the Amazons were reported not to allow any men to live in their territory , and only to allow the young men of a neighbouring tribe to come into their lands for ... (presumably with the unmarried women ?) only once per year, the offspring of these liasons were given back to their fathers if they were sons, and trained as warriors if they were daughters ( how much of this is truth ,and how much myth is uncertain)

The Amazons are said to have aided King Priam , against the Greeks , and their Queen at the time Penthesilea , is said to have been slain by Achilles.She was of Thracian birth, and the Thracians were reputed to hold their women in common (ie the women shared husbands with other women, presumably again because men were in short supply , because of those slain in battle )

In aora linda book the Aeromoeder (leader of the tribe above all men )named Adela , who was supposedly 8' tall , killed 4 raiders with her sword in four thrusts , and in mahabharata most of the women in the 2nd caste of Kshatriyas (the noble class) were trained in the art of warfare ,albeit mostly as archers it seems , and some reportedly fought alongside their menfolk. plus boudica and her daughters sound as though if you wanted to retain your integrity/fidelity in ancient times , you were probably going to have to fight to the death for it .

It would seem this is where the medieval myth of "chastity belts" comes in to play

In the Roman army, enlistment (or being snatched up by the draft) was considered paramount to divorce if the recruit was married. This in fact became a law under Augustus and Tiberius, who completed the process of turning the military into a career (and who also professed great concern for the sexual morality of their subjects).

I like in the film "Letters from Iwo Jima2 the perspective of a Japanese wife which is given, waiting for her husband, already knowing he will hardly return.

..................................Ruby

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ldtuSfm9g&feature=related"]Kenny Rogers - Ruby 1972 - YouTube[/ame]

In the future we should prolly send the ..... instead, they'll win the war in no time. That way all the guys can sit back at home and watch the telly too.

I'm just thinking there's no way the original Penelope (for there had to be one) sat at that loom for twenty years fending off legions of those amorous dogs (the suitors) while Odysseus gallivanted around the Mediterranean.

One thing I do recall is that Homer synthesised pre-existing 'Trojan' tales which had obviously mushroomed out of all proportion with regards to the adventures with Circe, the Cyclopes, Aeolus etc and so to accommodate the expanded repertoire of Odysseus-related material bards had to steadily increase the time which Penelope was said to have waited.

This story, that the Bard's extended Odysseus journey in order to accommodate his son's coming of age doesn't sit right as the Telemachus sub-plot seems all the time subsidiary to the Penelope story. It must have been considered a very satisfactory 'adjustment' in that it set forth unmistakeably the kind of example women should follow - the long suffering Penelope immune to the suitors advances and holding out courageously for her husband's return.

A perfect feel good tale for future wars and a warning of the warrior's wrath should he be cuckolded. Women whose men were lost at sea or 'missing in action' during multiple Greek wars must have had all sorts of prohibitive norms imposed against them re-marrying too early let alone 'doing the dirt' via this oral tradition.

Of course, within a few hundred years it would instead be the dictates of the Church imposing these norms.

Some women didn't wait for their men at home, some went with them. Armies in past centuries were followed by soldiers' wives, and other women. Even upper class women sometimes accompanied their husbands, like Eleanor of Aquitaine for instance who went to the crusades with Louis VII. 'The Spanish Bride' by Georgette Heyer is a novel about a real life young Spanish .... who married a British officer in the Napoleonic wars and accompanied him on campaign. Ladysmith in South Africa was named after her.