Alongside this, increased interest in the cultural history of the Great War has opened up new research topics focused among other things on the everyday life of soldiers, the history of families during the war and ties between the war- and home fronts.
Essays, novels, narrative accounts, iconographical documents, songs, press articles, as well as parliamentary debates and legal sources have all been used to examine the boundary between private life and the public sphere.
The war brutally disrupted the private lives of French families since practically all families were affected by a departure for the frontlines.
This article will examine how conjugal ties are influenced by separation in war, approached here in the very specific context of the First World War which, by massively mobilizing men, also massively separated families. Indeed, at least 5 million couples were separated during the four years of the war. By mobilizing 7. Examining the private lives of couples during the Great War involves analysing how the war changed the make-up of private and everyday life for couples; it also involves observing the shifting boundaries between private life and public affairs.
This article will address the consequences of the war on the private lives of couples in three parts: we will first examine the government measures taken in favour of couples separated by the war; then we will discuss the economic and familial disruptions caused by their separation; and, lastly, we will analyse how long-distance intimacy was invented, primarily through letter-writing. French lawmakers were worried about what would happen to couples separated by the war.
