Etiquette For The Subaltern’s Wife

From Woman’s Weekly, February 9th 1918.

ETIQUETTE FOR THE SUBALTERN’S WIFE.

Some Useful Hints for the Girl who Marries a Junior Officer.

WHEN Jack and I became engaged nobody was dreaming about war, and yet it was only six weeks before war broke out.  Jack gave up his job at once and joined the Army, and, of course, I was awfully proud of him.  But I was intensely unhappy when his regiment was ordered to France just a very short time after.  He was in France for fifteen months, when he got a commission and leave.  He was now a subaltern, and the next event was that he was wounded and sent home.  When he left the hospital he was sent to another battalion of his regiment, which was stationed at a big naval and military town in England, because the doctors said he would never be fit for active service again.  On his first leave from there we were married.
Because, like everything else in war-time, our movements were so uncertain, we took a furnished house.
I was very nervous, thinking of the new people I should have to make friends among, especially as I had never known anything of military life, and I had often heard that there are little points of etiquette quite peculiar to Service people.
Jack was not of very much help to me, for whenever I asked him to give me some idea of things he would say:
“Don't you worry, you’ll soon slip into it all!”

MY FIRST CALLER. 
A FEW days after we arrived I had my first caller.  She was a doctor's wife, and had lived in the place for a good many years, and told me quite a lot of things about life in a garrison town.  One was that I, being a bride, would not pay a call on the wife of the captain-superintendent of the dockyard (she is the most important lady, because the Navy is the senior service, and always takes precedence of the Army) and the colonel’s wife until they had called on me.  Had I not been a bride I should have had to call on both of them very soon after we arrived.
Every call has to be returned within a week or ten days.  Another thing that has to be remembered is that the colonel's wife is treated with just as much respect by the junior officer's wife as the colonel is treated by the junior officers.  A sure way for a junior to become unpopular is for him to attempt to take an important part in the regimental social affairs.  And any young officer's wife who talks of her husband’s regiment as "our regiment" is very much disliked.
Sometimes the ladies of the regiment are invited to dine at the officers' mess on what are known as ladies' nights.  Then the colonel's wife, or, if she is not there, or if the colonel doesn't happen to be married, the wife of the next most senior officer is the first to rise from the table after dinner.

WRITING TO THE PADRE. 
WE had such a nice chaplain in the regiment.  I wanted to ask him to dinner one night, but I was so puzzled as to how to address him.  Jack helped me out of this difficulty, though.  The correct way to address the "padre" as everybody calls him, is to put his rank first and then "The Revd."; in our case it was Captain, The Revd. R. W. Bruce.  It's so hard to know all these things if you've never known anything of the Army customs.
In peace time it was the custom, when writing to an officer who was below the rank of captain, to address him as esquire, instead of second-lieutenant or lieutenant, as we do now.
When introducing a second-lieutenant or lieutenant to your friends, you always call him "Mr."  But if the man you are introducing is a captain or major, you use this title.
I nearly committed an unpardonable offence not very long after I arrived.  My brother Bob, who had joined as a Tommy, wrote to tell me he was being transferred to Jack's battalion, and in my supreme ignorance, thought it would be so nice for him to meet the colonel at our house.  Bob explained the situation to me very quickly, and I learnt that such a thing is not done.  When entertaining Bob I did not invite any of his officers, because in the Army the rule is for officers and men to keep quite apart socially.
Whenever an invitation is received, whether it's private or regimental—for instance, the regimental sports and things like that—it must be answered at the very earliest moment.  The regimental invitations are always formal, and so, of course, are answered in the third person.  But if the colonel's wife writes a friendly note asking you to dinner, you, of course, answer in the same way.

IF you are out walking with your husband, and he is in uniform, never take his arm.
WHEN you have been shopping and have collected parcels, do not expect a soldier to carry them for you.
DON'T let a soldier hold your umbrella over you if you are out in the rain.

[The tremendous number of casualties amongst junior officers meant that many new officers were not from the traditional 'officer class'.  Hence, many women must have found themselves officers' wives without any background to teach them the arcane rules of behaviour.  But the situation described here, where an officer from a  non-traditional background was posted to a garrison town in Britain, and so was accompanied by his wife, must have been relatively unusual.]