Another “Enemy Within”: Lesbian Wives, or the Hidden Threat to the Cold War Family

Even in the middle of the twentieth century—the era of family "togetherness"—some Americans feared that the institution of marriage faced a hidden threat in the form of sexually duplicitous "lesbian wives." By focusing on the policing of homosexuals in the federal government and in public cruising spots, historians have suggested that men were the primary victims of Cold War homophobia. Yet, as politicians weeded out homosexuals from the State Department, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts embarked on a similar mission; they attempted to identify and reform white, middle-class women who secretly engaged in lesbian relationships within heterosexual marriages where they posed the greatest risk to the nation's security. Many midcentury psychiatrists and psychoanalysts were sympathetic to the challenges that homosexuals faced and even argued for greater social acceptance of homosexuality. However, those who did write about lesbian wives, including Edmund Bergler and Frank Caprio, implied that they threatened to undermine white privilege, destabilize gender roles, and destroy the nuclear family.

This paper contrasts depictions of lesbian wives within mental health literature to those within the pages of the Daughters of Bilitis’ newsletter The Ladder. Contributors to The Ladder portrayed lesbian wives as victims of homophobia who would rather deny their sexual desires than disrupt their families. They argued that lesbians could not be cured of their attraction to other women, but denied that homosexuals wanted more than social acceptance and understanding. Most contributors to The Ladder insisted that lesbian wives simply wanted to be good mothers and good Americans. Surprisingly, some activists argued that lesbian wives should sublimate their desires in order to preserve their heterosexual marriages. Mental health experts’ and homophile activists’ discourses about lesbian wives indicate that even Americans with diametrically opposed ideas about sexual norms and values have been united in the endeavor to protect marriage.