This advice comes from Milton Bennion, then General Superintendency of the Deseret Sunday School Union.

L.D.S. Girls and Women in Wartime

With the call of young men of superior physical fitness to the armed forces for defense of their country against aggression, there goes very naturally an obligation on the part of women to give them all the aid and comfort that is within their power properly to give. Some of the younger women do this by enlisting as army nurses; others enlist in other branches of the service where women can be most helpful in support of the enlisted men.

All of this is a very necessary and patriotic service when performed in ways that contribute not only to the physical welfare and morale of the men but also uphold the highest standards of moral and spiritual welfare. Otherwise, the association of women with the armed forces becomes a moral menace to both men and women, often bringing in its trail loathsome diseases that have proved to be one of the greatest liabilities to the successful prosecution of the war. This, however, damaging as it is, is a minor factor compared with the dire consequences both physical and moral, that follow for years or even for generations after the war has been won or lost.

These conditions apply with equal force to girls and women who have no official connection with the fighting forces. Girls in their teens are entitled to the guardianship of parents, whose sympathy and wider experience should shield their girls from the temptations that all too often lead to the downfall of minors who are attracted by the glamour of military uniforms. This is not to infer that generally, men in uniform would take advantage of innocent girls but experience has shown that there are some who would do so.

Girls associating with men who are strangers to them may at any time find themselves the objects of lust that may result in life-long sorrow. The finest prospects for a happy and useful life may be ruined in a very brief time.

This is the dark side of the picture. What of the bright side? There are in the military forces many fine young men; men fit to be the husbands o women of the purest minds and chaste lives. Should not all L.D.S. women do everything within their power to help these young men to come out of their severe and trying experiences as sound in morals and religion as they were when they entered the service. Evidently it is their religious and patriotic obligation to do this; and also to protect themselves from becoming objects of the lust of men of loose morals. This also is a great service to their Church and their country.

The modern slogan that women are entitled to equal rights and opportunities with men has led some women into fallacies of thought and practice that are very damaging to them and to the future welfare of mankind. In the first place, as to moral standards, equality of rights and practices should mean that men should live up to the standards they expect of high-class women. To assume that women may indulge in the same practices that some men indulge in means that woman is simply degrading herself.

From another pont of view equality of rights does not mean absence of differences and duties any more than does the phrase, “all men are created free and equal.” The facts are, of course, that in many respects they are unequal. So in many ways men and women are different and unequal. Each sex may be superior in some respects and inferior in other respects.

The difference in biological structure and functions is self-evidence. The differences psychologically and socially are not so visibly manifest but are nevertheless a fact. Men and women are complements of each other. The more fully and frankly this is recognized and the life of the family and of society organized and operated on this principle, the greater will be the success and the lasting happiness of both men and women.

While it may not be the destiny of every woman to become a wife and mother, to live worthy of motherhood in the highest and most sacred meaning of the term is her proper destiny and road to enduring happiness. Women who have no children of their own can generally find opportunities to take a motherly interest in children of relatives, friends, and neighbors, and in this service find at least some of the satisfactions that go wit successful motherhood. Any part in the creation or development of successful lives is one of the greatest contributions to religion.