From the time Thomas Jefferson declared that America should send ambassadors around the globe, the life of Foreign Service officers has been seen as one of status and glamour. For many veteran officers and spouses, this remains true. But to a whole new generation of spouses life in the Foreign Service can represent an almost total loss of the economic freedom and self- determination they had learned to take for granted. These spouses find themselves swept into an institutionalized role as unpaid adjuncts to their husbands.
The phenomenon is not limited to the Foreign Service, as more and more corporate spouses find themselves facing similar dilemmas. As increasing numbers of Americans are sent overseas by their employers, the term "trailing spouse" is becoming more common than ever. The dilemmas are particularly acute for dual-career couples, whether in the Foreign Service, the military, or business.
In The Accidental Diplomat: Dilemmas of the Trailing Spouse, Katherine Hughes presents a detailed analysis of the situation of Foreign Service spouses. Based on over forty interviews with Foreign Service wives, as well as interviews with male spouses and tandem couples, the book traces the history of the role of the wife in the U.S. Foreign Service and describes how the lives of Foreign Service wives are constrained and determined by their husbands profession. Hughes concludes that expectations about the wifes role have changed more slowly in the Foreign Service than in American society as a whole.
This important book probes the awkward world of women whose identities are shaped by the professional commitments of their husbands to the Foreign Service. Foreign Service wives are often among the best-known symbols of American society in foreign lands, responsible for representing the nation's interests and cultural traditions in settings far from home. They are asked to play this pivotal role without real compensation and in the context of shifting locales that force them to reinvent their lives every two or three years. Katherine Hughes shows us what kind of toll this takes on Foreign Service wives and the artful ways in which they learn to live with their responsibilities.Katherine Newman, Ford Foundation Professor of Urban Studies, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
The excitement of international diplomacy, the reality of actually living in a foreign culture, and the emotions maintaining a family and private life are currents that surge and flow in our diplomatic life. Much is written about the former, little about the latter. Katherine Hughes, through her research and own personal experience in the Foreign Service, goes deeply into the soul describing our changing times, underscoring the enormous importance of the spouse and family in the diplomatic service, and revealing the often deep anguish that its family members feel when the call to public service clashes with the call to family.Edward W. "Skip" Gnehm, Jr.
About the Author
Katherine Hughes grew up in a Foreign Service home, living in Germany, Venezuela, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Israel. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University and is currently Senior Research Associate at the Institute on Education and the Economy, Teachers College. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, Jeff.
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