5

‘Australian Is an Alien’: The Position of Australian Women Married to ‘Aliens’, 1920–49

Emma Bellino

If I wanted to go from my home in Nedlands on a Sunday to visit members of my family in Claremont, I wasn’t allowed to go without a travelling permit.¹

Introduction

Phyllis Eve Pick was born in Australia and she married a Hungarian man, Alexander Pick, on 5 May 1942. In March 1945, Perth’s Daily News used her story to highlight the absurd nature of marital denaturalisation – a law whereby women who married ‘aliens’ lost their original nationality and were deemed to acquire that of their husbands. As Phyllis’s husband was an ‘enemy alien’, she was legally regarded the same way: she was required to register as an alien, she had to obtain a travel permit to visit her family who lived in a different suburb and she was prohibited from owning a camera. Prior to marrying, she had served as a voluntary driver in the Red Cross and had been a member of a field unit. She lost her position a week before she married. She recalled that when she went to register as an alien: ‘The only photograph I had to take with me … was in [my] Army uniform, and the official I had to give it to laughed.’²

Alexander Pick had renounced his Hungarian nationality and applied for an Australian naturalisation certificate in February 1945.³ Women whose husbands were naturalised during the course of their marriage were required to seek naturalisation to regain their British nationality. This was in keeping with the policy that women whose husbands lost their British nationality after they were married were not automatically ‘maritally denaturalised’ but could make a declaration of alienage if they chose to. Phyllis’s story highlights this aspect of dependent nationality and shows the interesting, inconvenient and, at times, tragic position that women married to aliens could find themselves in during wartime. Importantly, until 1949, ‘Australian citizenship’ was not legally defined. Instead, people born or naturalised in Australia had the legal status of ‘British subject’.

To underline Phyllis’s predicament, the Daily News stated that she was:

an Australian-born girl, daughter of Australian parents, wife of an Australian [as Alexander had recently been naturalised], and mother of an Australian child, [she] has never been out of Australia – but she is a Hungarian.⁴

In many ways, Australian women married to aliens were still considered to be Australian. However, as Phyllis’s story demonstrates, the experience of wartime alien registration exacerbated the difficulties associated with marital denaturalisation and made women social ‘others’ as well as legal ‘others’. Phyllis’s story was published on page 26 of the newspaper beside an article on Australian efforts in World War II (WWII). The tone suggested that her situation was peculiar, as not only was Phyllis Australian-born but also her Hungarian husband had satisfied the domicile requirements and had been granted naturalisation. Yet, despite her place of birth, she was still required to apply for naturalisation to once again become a British subject.

Gender and ‘Citizenship’ in Australia

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, gender and marital status were essential factors in determining an individual’s position under nationality laws. For women, marriage with an ‘alien’ caused them to be stripped of their own nationality and be deemed to have obtained their husband’s nationality. This policy was practised in many nations around the world, including Australia and throughout the British Empire. Historian Joan Beaumont argues that, during this period, notions of allegiance and military service were central to ideas of nationality and citizenship.⁵ These were highly gendered notions and likely informed marital denaturalisation laws.

Under the ancient rules of British common law that applied in Australia, a person’s place of birth created indelible allegiance to the sovereign of the land. ‘Natural-born’ British subjects could not revoke their allegiance and take up another nationality of their own accord.⁶ But, as Helen Irving notes, this was overridden by the United Kingdom’s Naturalization Act 1870, including for women who married foreigners or ‘aliens’. Allegiance to the British sovereign became less important than allegiance (or subservience) to the husband. As Irving says:

The Naturalization Act 1870 had already reversed the common law principle that a British national could not lose or change nationality by any voluntary action, and had applied legislation to British nationality. The act of marriage, while voluntary, was deemed also to include the voluntary transfer of allegiance (even if the latter was, in reality, a legal fiction) … A man owed allegiance to, and therefore belonged to his own country; a woman owed allegiance to her husband, therefore belonged to her husband’s country. A woman lost her citizenship upon foreign marriage, and (in principle at least) gained her husband’s citizenship.⁷

This British marital denaturalisation law was adopted by Australian colonies. For example, section 7 of the Act to Amend the Law Relating to Aliens 1875 (NSW) declared that ‘every married woman shall in this Colony be deemed to be a subject of the State of which her husband is for the time being a subject’. Other colonies had similar laws that carried over after Federation. Marital denaturalisation was reinforced in the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914 and adopted at a national level in Australia in section 18 of the Nationality Act 1920 (Cth), which declared that ‘the wife of a British subject shall be deemed to be a British subject, and the wife of an alien shall be deemed to be an alien’.

Beaumont discusses the complex nature of Australian ‘citizenship’ during World War I (WWI) and WWII, and argues that, ‘since the birth of the modern democratic state, military service has been the quintessential demand that the state makes of the citizen’. She suggests that this is a key reason ‘why citizenship has been gendered, with the rights of men who serve as combat soldiers being considered superior to the rights of women’.⁸ Similarly, Helen Irving argues that, ‘historically, what distinguished a citizen (in a constitutional sense) from an alien, was allegiance’, which was ‘demonstrated principally in military terms’.⁹ Since women were barred from demonstrating allegiance through military combat, their claim to nationality was less secure than that of men.¹⁰

Marital denaturalisation caused emotional and physical hardship for women. Australian-born women married to aliens were ineligible to vote in federal elections, were unable to purchase land, faced difficulty obtaining a passport, lost any teachers’ superannuation they had accrued, were barred from working in certain professions, including the public service, were required to register as aliens during wartime, and could even be considered ‘enemy aliens’ (depending on their husband’s nationality). This was the case for all Australian women regardless of their racial background. For non-white Australian women married to aliens, racial restrictions compounded their experience of marital denaturalisation. For example, Hilda Maclean notes that, in Queensland during WWI, Aboriginal women who married Chinese husbands became ‘aliens in their own land’ and were subject to federal alien restriction regulations in addition to prohibitions imposed by the state’s Aboriginal ‘protection’ laws.¹¹

Wartime and Denaturalisation

The consequences of marital denaturalisation were harsher during wartime. This chapter examines wartime experiences to highlight the complexities and emotional toll on maritally denaturalised women in Australia. As noted by barrister Elizabeth Trout in an article for the Daily Telegraph in 1939, nationality was ‘the factor [that determined] the flag under which a person [was] entitled to seek protection in wartime’.¹² During wartime, the loss of nationality meant the loss of political protection, assistance, allegiance and the right to freedom of movement and association, all of which were less problematic during peacetime. Aliens were not entitled to government assistance and protection; under the law, they did not owe their allegiance to the nation, and, conversely, the nation did not owe protection to them. Neither were they guaranteed the rights and freedoms that (white) subjects took for granted.

Alien registration rules and restrictions were essential components of Australian maritally denaturalised women’s experiences during the early twentieth century. Australia practised alien registration between 1916 and 1926 and 1939 and 1971. During this time, aliens were required to register at their local police station to assist the government in monitoring the whereabouts of those seen as potential security threats. Restrictions were placed on their freedom of movement and right to associate with others, and they were prohibited from owning cameras, radios or land. Prior to 1946, Australian-born women married to aliens who had not been naturalised or made a declaration of their intention to retain their nationality rights under section 18A of the Nationality Act were also required to register as aliens.

Restrictions and regulations were more severe for those classed as ‘enemy aliens’. These were legal aliens whose country of nationality was at war with Australia. Women married to enemy aliens were also considered to have this legal status because they had acquired, or had been deemed to acquire, the nationality of their husband. As well as restrictions on their right to freedom of movement and association, enemy alien regulations provided that they could be interned or detained. They were also required to regularly report to the police.¹³ Enemy aliens were restricted from possessing firearms or other weapons, cameras and surveying apparatus, motor vehicles, cipher or coding tools, telephones, broadcasting transmitters, and naval or airforce maps and handbooks.¹⁴

War precautions affected both ‘friendly’ and ‘enemy’ aliens. Historian Daniel Leach discusses instances of internment of ‘friendly aliens’ in Australia during WWII. He argues that local authorities were unsure whose authority it was to enforce the National Security Act 1939 (Cth), and that xenophobia and distrust of those who were non-British influenced Australian security policies.¹⁵ Leach suggests that, in contrast with the processes governing the internment of enemy aliens, authorities were careful to ‘establish solid cases’ before interning friendly aliens.¹⁶

Iyko Day and D. C. S. Sissons examine the internment of Japanese aliens in Australia during WWII. Day looks at the internment of Japanese ‘enemy aliens’, noting that because Australia’s ‘wartime internment policy’ was already in place, it was possible to ‘round up nearly all Japanese individuals from Australia and surrounding nations within twenty-four hours of the bombing of Pearl Harbor’.¹⁷ Sissons discusses Japanese migrants in Australia between 1871 and 1971. He argues that in 1941 ‘all Japanese residents and with very few exceptions their Australian-born children – a total of 958 – were interned’. Sissons notes that, at war’s end, ‘the Australian-born were permitted to remain but all but 75 of the Japanese-born were compulsorily returned to Japan’.¹⁸

Despite having no legal claim to British nationality, Australian-born, maritally denaturalised women – at least those with an ethnically British background – were still considered members of the Australian community by virtue of their birth and upbringing in Australia, and their presumed commitment to Australian values and ideals. Oftentimes, public opinion, politicians and the women themselves considered maritally denaturalised women to still be Australian, despite their legal status. Legal histories highlight the changing legal–political position of maritally denaturalised women in Australia.¹⁹ In her pivotal work Citizenship, Alienage, and the Modern Constitutional State: A Gendered History, Helen Irving considers the legal position of maritally denaturalised women during war and outlines the gendered nature of allegiance and citizenship in the first half of the twentieth century. This chapter builds on Irving’s work to examine the emotional toll of marital denaturalisation. It also builds on histories of interracial families in Australia.²⁰ Notably, it highlights the disconnect between maritally denaturalised women’s legal position and their own, often deeply held, identities as British Australian women.

Race and Nationality

Race was an essential component of Australian women’s experiences of marital denaturalisation. Although non-Anglo women might still identify as British or Australian, their place in the Australian community was not as sure as that of Anglo women married to aliens. Tellingly, articles and political discussions dealing with married women’s nationality rarely mentioned race. Although not explicitly articulated, politicians and the popular press likely assumed that the maritally denaturalised women they considered to be ‘Australian’ were Australian-born white women. The assumed racial distinction between white ‘Australian girls’ and their alien husbands is evident in a number of political discussions and articles in the press. For example, in an article discussing the deportation of Malayan and Chinese men who had arrived as wartime refugees, the president of the Australian Natives’ Association declared: ‘Some of these persons have married women of their own race; others have married Australian girls. In both cases they are multiplying.’²¹ This distinction between ‘Australian girls’ and ‘women of their own race’ demonstrates that Australian women were presumed to be Anglo rather than ethnically Chinese or Malay, even though such women were also Australian by birth and upbringing.

Social Citizens, Legal Aliens

To explore the contrast between maritally denaturalised women’s position as both ‘social citizens’ and legal aliens, the remainder of this chapter examines their depiction in three arenas: political debates, the popular press and women’s applications to government. The effect of the two world wars, which strengthened women’s existential ties to their original nationality, runs through each section to emphasise that these women were legal aliens and were subject to laws limiting their rights, while – in the case of white women – they remained socially and emotionally Australian/British and were largely seen that way by the communities around them.

Parliamentary debates across the first half of the twentieth century reveal that Australian politicians were generally favourable towards women married to aliens. Debates surrounding certain rights or privileges, such as those around the maternity allowance introduced in 1912, combined with debates on nationality legislation, show how politicians attempted to assist women married to aliens while negotiating the commitment of successive federal governments to maintain unity in nationality law throughout the British Empire.²² Newspapers and women’s magazines assumed a similar posture in asserting that Australian-born women deserved their independent nationality and in advocating for the restoration of their rights.

Women’s applications to government provide a rich history of women’s agency and their love for Australia/Britain. Many applications were made by women who seemed unlikely to engage in politics or political advocacy. However, the realisation that they had lost their dearly held original nationality and the practical difficulties this brought, especially in wartime, led them to engage with government on this issue. In these records, women highlight their connections to Australia and Britain and argue that, although they had forfeited their birth nationality through marriage, they had not lost their love for Australia/Britain.

Australian Political Debates on Married Women’s Nationality

Discussions and debates in Australian parliaments during the early twentieth century demonstrate that, in general, Australian politicians were in favour of women’s independent nationality and viewed maritally denaturalised (white) women as still being Australian/British despite their altered legal status. There were a number of reasons why Australian governments legislated in favour of marital denaturalisation in the first half of the twentieth century, the most pervasive of which was to maintain uniform nationality laws throughout the British Empire, as agreed at the 1911 Imperial Conference.

Marital denaturalisation legislation in Australia remained relatively unchanged from 1920, when it was established in federal law, to 1936, when the Nationality Act was amended to include a new section, 18(2), which declared that Australian women who married aliens would only lose their British nationality if they received their husband’s nationality through marriage. This major amendment to prevent women becoming stateless through marriage was in direct response to an international convention held at The Hague in 1930 that discussed married women’s nationality and the resulting international complications. The second pivotal amendment in 1936 was the introduction into the Nationality Act of section 18A, which allowed Australian-born women married to aliens to declare their intention to retain their nationality rights and obligations.

The enactment of section 18A demonstrates how Australian politicians negotiated the conflicting goals of restoring women’s independent nationality and maintaining the common code of nationality legislation throughout the British Empire. Significantly, section 18A had no extraterritorial power. Hence, rights retained under the provision were applicable only while the recipient was in Australia and its territories. The Act declared that:

Any woman to whom this section [18A] applies, whether her marriage is still continuing or not, may … make a declaration in the prescribed form and manner that she desires to retain while in Australia or any Territory the rights of a British subject, and thereupon she shall, within Australia or any Territory, be entitled to all political and other rights, powers, and privileges, and be subject to all obligations, duties and liabilities, to which a natural-born British subject is entitled or subject.²³

Section 18A demonstrates that politicians looked favourably upon the possibility of granting women independent nationality. Further, it suggests that Australian lawmakers still considered maritally denaturalised women to be important members of the Australian community. Although they were legal ‘others’, they were not necessarily social or cultural ‘others’. Their Australian birth and upbringing meant that, despite their new legal status, Australian-born women married to aliens were still ‘Australian’ in the eyes of politicians.

Women’s organisations played a pivotal role in demanding political change in the early twentieth century.²⁴ Developments in marital denaturalisation laws in Australia were influenced by campaigns, conferences and deputations by women’s organisations, both within Australia and around the wider Commonwealth, arguing in favour of women’s independent nationality rights. Both state-based and national organisations lobbied members of parliament on the issue of marital nationality, sending deputations and letters to ministers urging them to bring marital denaturalisation before parliament and enact legislative changes. For example, the National Council of Women Australia (NCWA) and the Australian Federation of Women Voters (AFWV) both appealed to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons for support in 1933.

Capitalising on international affiliations was an essential aspect of women’s organisations’ strategic approach to advancing women’s rights, including their fight to end dependent nationality.²⁵ Women’s organisations staunchly rejected the 1930 League of Nations Convention on Certain Questions Relating to the Conflict of Nationality Law (The Hague Convention) because it effectively wrote the principle of women’s inferiority to men into international law. The AFWV called it ‘an insult to women’.²⁶ Recognising that the issue required agreement around the British Empire, organisations united to urge governments around the world to reject the recommendations of The Hague Convention. At an NCWA executive meeting in Melbourne in January 1934, May Moss, the NCWA’s first president, noted that she had attended a ‘private interview’ with Prime Minister Lyons that ‘did not give [her] much hope’, describing the issue as ‘a sort of see-saw between the Dominions and the British Empire’.²⁷

The parliamentary discussions that led to the development of section 18A reveal politicians’ support for the rights of Australian-born maritally denaturalised women. On 14 March 1935, during the second reading of the Nationality Bill in the House of Representatives – that is, before section 18A had been developed – Sir Donald Cameron, United Australia member for Lilley in Queensland, asserted that the proposed Bill’s ‘provisions fall very far short of what we would desire’. Cameron alluded to the tireless campaigning of women’s organisations, stating that ‘countless thousands of women in every country have made it very clear that their objective is absolute equality of nationality for married women’.²⁸ He proposed that Australia include a provision similar to one New Zealand had adopted in its British Nationality and Status of Aliens (in New Zealand) Amendment Act 1934, which allowed women to retain their rights as British subjects, if not their actual British nationality. The wording of section 18A closely followed New Zealand’s 1934 amending legislation.

On 13 November 1936, the Nationalist member for Perth, Walter Nairn, having urged the government to repeal dependent nationality on several occasions, noted Cameron’s absence and proposed the inclusion of what would become section 18A. Nairn emphasised that its purpose was to ‘remove disadvantages that are suffered by many of our womenfolk’.²⁹ Thomas Paterson, Country Party member for Gippsland in Victoria, who supported the amendment, observed that, ‘strictly speaking, in law she would still be regarded as an alien outside of Australia’, but concluded that the new provision ‘would go a long way towards meeting, in Australia at all events, the wish of our womenfolk to be treated on an equality basis’.³⁰ No arguments against the clause were presented, and, when put to a vote, section 18A was passed.

Apart from the inclusion of section 18A in 1936, debates in both houses of federal parliament across the first half of the twentieth century show that many Australian politicians supported improved rights for maritally denaturalised women, expressing a belief they should not lose their British nationality upon marrying an alien. For example, on 27 October 1920, during the second reading of the Nationality Bill, Frank Brennan, Labor member for Batman in Victoria, declared that ‘a great deal of dissatisfaction and indignation [had] been engendered among the people of this country’ on the topic of marital denaturalisation. Echoing Senate debates from 1903, he asserted that, despite Australia’s advances in giving women rights and ‘privileges equal to those possessed by the mere man … in connexion with naturalization we are still pursuing the antiquated policy of bracketing her with lunatics and idiots’³¹ (as the Nationality Act 1920 did in its definition of ‘disability’).³² He deemed this state of affairs both unjust and illogical.

Bert Lazzarini, Labor member for Werriwa, agreed, arguing on 3 November 1920 that marital denaturalisation was ‘absurd’. He asserted: ‘I think that men and women should have equal treatment in matters of this kind.’³³ Labor member for Melbourne Ports, James Mathews, also considered marital denaturalisation ‘preposterous’ and disagreed with inadvertently ‘limit[ing] the field of matrimony to any Australian-born woman’.³⁴ He declared:

in Australia we should take the stand that women should have the same privileges as men … Nobody has a right to deprive any native-born Australian woman of her birthright.³⁵

Sentiments such as these were racialised as well as gendered; Australian-born women who were not white had different levels of access to their ‘birthright’ than white women. For example, it was not until 1962 that all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women (and men) were able to vote at federal elections, whereas white women over 21 years of age were granted this right in 1902.³⁶

On 4 February 1926, in the House of Representatives, Nationalist member for Boothby John Grant Duncan-Hughes suggested that ‘the loss of her nationality, of the franchise, and, in certain circumstances, of her property, is a severe penalty for marrying an alien’. He further remarked:

It would be idle to pretend that there are no objections [to repealing marital denaturalisation], but the reasons in favour of a change seem to me to far outweigh those for the retention of the present system.³⁷

Duncan-Hughes proposed:

That, in the opinion of this House, a British woman should not lose, or be deemed to lose, her nationality by the mere act of marriage with an alien, but that it should be open to her to make a declaration of alienage.³⁸

In response, Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, who, like Duncan-Hughes, was a member of the Nationalist Party, declared:

The right of women who marry to retain their nationality is of the very greatest importance, and we all must sympathize with a great number of women in this and other countries who, through marriage, have forfeited their original nationality.³⁹

Further, Bruce argued that:

a woman naturally attaches the same importance to nationality as does a man and has at least as much patriotic feeling for her native country. For that reason women are entitled to demand that there shall be no avoidable differentiation in nationality rights between citizens of different sexes.⁴⁰

In the early twentieth century, numerous Australian politicians – many more than represented here – made speeches and engaged in debates asserting the right of Australian women to independent British nationality. Such women were not seen as ‘others’, but as Australian women who, having married ‘aliens’, had had the misfortune of forfeiting their dearly held nationality.

Further amendments to the Nationality Act in 1946 allowed Australian maritally denaturalised women, with few exceptions, to retain their British nationality rights automatically and without the need for a declaration under section 18A. Finally, in 1949, following a great deal of campaigning by women’s organisations, individuals, newspapers, magazines, lawyers and politicians, Australia repealed dependent nationality for women.

Married Women’s Nationality and the Popular Press

Newspapers and women’s magazines also addressed marital denaturalisation sympathetically, elaborating on the difficulties it caused and presenting women’s nationality as being ‘very dear to them’, regardless of the nationality of their spouses.⁴¹ Such articles indicate that, in the popular press, maritally denaturalised women were still largely considered ‘Australian’. In relation to marital denaturalisation, newspapers and women’s magazines discussed the changing legal situation, presented (limited) political updates, commented on women’s organisations and activism, described the work of key feminists, advertised meetings and events, and discussed various national and international conferences. Therefore, for historians, Australian newspapers and women’s magazines are essential sources of information about married women’s nationality, offering valuable insights into how marital denaturalisation was presented to the Australian public.

Occasionally, stories of individual women’s experiences and hardships, like Phyllis Pick’s, were discussed in newspaper and magazine articles. Such articles relayed the experiences of both high-profile and lesser-known ‘everyday’ women who had married aliens, and often accompanied articles about political debates and/or female activism on marital denaturalisation. The content and tone of these articles highlighted the absurd position such women faced as a consequence of getting married, indicating a level of public understanding that marital denaturalisation left women in a strange situation, to say the least.

Yet, considering the number of women affected, marital denaturalisation was often underreported during the early twentieth century. Although newspapers and women’s magazines discussed it to varying degrees, these discussions were not numerous. There was no increase in the number of articles following the introduction of statutory marital denaturalisation in Australia in 1920. In contrast, in the lead up to and following The Hague Convention, there was a noticeable increase in the number of articles attempting to educate women on their rights and advocating for the repeal of dependent nationality laws.

Focusing on Australian newspapers that have been digitised and are available on Trove, a free online library database, between 1900 and 1949, married women’s nationality was discussed or mentioned just over 3,400 times. During the period when marital denaturalisation was federally legislated (1920–48), there were 2,571 articles on married women’s nationality: 636 in the 1920s, 1,485 in the 1930s and 450 in the 1940s. Across the country, the number of articles on married women’s nationality varied.⁴² Between 1900 and 1949, newspapers in New South Wales reported on married women’s nationality 868 times, Queensland 723 times, Victoria 717 times, Western Australia 412 times, South Australia 401 times, Tasmania 259 times, the Australian Capital Territory 22 times and the Northern Territory nine times.

While some newspapers contained columns or pages specifically designed to appeal to women, they were often written with a broader audience in mind. In contrast, women’s magazines featured literature, humour and articles aimed at a female readership.⁴³ These magazines often contained columns on mothercraft and homemaking, gossip about popular celebrities and, when relevant, articles on political issues deemed of interest to women, including the state of dependent nationality. By discussing marital denaturalisation, women’s magazines presented the issue for a wider female readership, indicating that it was an issue of concern to more than just politicians, women’s political organisations and followers of political developments via newsprint. Importantly, marital denaturalisation was seen as a women’s interest story and something that women should be educated about. Women’s magazines both informed and reflected women’s interest in, and rejection of, dependent nationality laws.

The language and phrasing of articles in the popular press demonstrate widespread support for better conditions and rights for maritally denaturalised women and a general feeling that they were still Australian despite the formal loss of their nationality. In November 1936, an editorial in the Hobart Mercury declared:

Now comes the recognition of the fact that because a woman is married she does not therefore pawn her privileges as a citizen and merge her birthright of nationality in that of another person.⁴⁴

In reality, the amendment to the Nationality Act that year did not untangle a woman’s birthright from that of her husband. Instead, it allowed for the restoration of the nationality rights of a British subject upon making a declaration. It did not alter the legal status of Australian women so affected. Unless they would otherwise become stateless by marriage, such women were technically still aliens. Regardless, the sentiment that the law was finally catching up to the ‘fact’ that women had their own ‘birthright of nationality’ is significant. This demonstrates support for married women’s independent nationality and that (white) women married to aliens were still largely seen as Australian.

In an article in the Australian Women’s Weekly in November 1933 entitled ‘Australian Girl Became an Alien’, Lorna Maneschi, the daughter of a senior Victorian Government official who had married an Italian man, Edigio Maneschi, in London in 1928, commented ‘it is a strange experience to return to my home as an alien’.⁴⁵ The year 1933 was the midpoint between The Hague Convention (1930), which led to substantial changes in marital denaturalisation law, and the Nationality Act 1936 (Cth), which amended Australia’s nationality legislation in line with The Hague Convention, providing for women to declare their desire to retain their nationality rights after marriage with an alien. Across this period, ongoing political discussion and female advocacy calling for changes to married women’s nationality influenced articles on the topic.

In its article on Lorna Maneschi, the Australian Women’s Weekly attempted to engender sympathy for women who found themselves in a similar ‘ridiculous situation’. The article began by asking: ‘How would you feel if you found yourself treated as a foreigner in your own country, subjected to all sorts of humiliations and red tape?’⁴⁶ It presented facts and figures, and claimed that one well-known Sydney divorce barrister, Stanley Vere Toose, knew of 50 deserted women who, owing to laws that viewed a wife’s legal domicile as being that of her husband, had ‘no legal standing in any divorce court’. Borrowing the words of Melbourne solicitor Joan Rosanove, the article stressed that: ‘Women’s organisations have no juster or stronger claim to any reform than they have in their campaign to permit married women to retain their nationality.’⁴⁷ Emphasising its view of marital denaturalisation as humiliating and unjust, the article concluded that: ‘It is a sharp reminder that any Australian woman who marries a foreigner is admitted to her native county only on sufferance.’⁴⁸

Articles that relayed the stories of well-known and lesser-known Australian women who had married aliens attempted to make women who had not married aliens familiar with their situation to help them see it as a problem that could affect all Australian women. In 1935, the Sydney Morning Herald printed the words of Linda P. Littlejohn, a prominent feminist and founder of the League of Women Voters in Australia:

Suppose your daughter falls in love with and marries a good-looking Swede, then her country is finished with her. She cannot keep the nationality of her land, which is just as dear to her as to you or your husband.⁴⁹

This was a problem that every Australian woman needed to care about. In choosing a ‘good-looking Swede’ as the hypothetical match, Littlejohn was making it clear that even women who married white, ‘friendly’ aliens would lose their nationality: marital denaturalisation was not just an issue for women who married ‘undesirable’ or ‘coloured’ aliens – it was an issue for all women who married aliens.

In media portrayals of the issue, white Australian women who married aliens were still called ‘Australian’ or ‘British’. Most articles argued for the repeal of marital denaturalisation and the restoration of women’s independent nationality. The language used in newspaper reports addressing married women’s nationality status stressed the importance of the issue for women and lamented that dominion governments were not taking reasonable steps to repeal the offending legislation. In 1930, quoting the words of Dr Ethel Dentham to the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, the Adelaide Advertiser noted that there was ‘a growing revolt’ against the ‘doctrine of sex subordination’. Dentham had argued that:

The grievance is not merely sentimental; the legal principle objected to may inflict injury of a practical kind. A woman married to a foreigner may stand in need of all the protection her country’s laws and diplomacy can give her, quite as much as her spinster sister, perhaps more so.⁵⁰

According to Dentham, nationality afforded practical and physical protection for women married to aliens. The suggestion that such women were in greater need of protection than their ‘spinster sisters’ may have alluded to newspaper reports – often highly sensationalised – about women who had followed their alien husbands overseas and experienced certain hardships.⁵¹ The idea that such women might require the protection of ‘her country’ reinforced the perception that British women married to aliens were still British despite their formal legal status.

Women’s Agency and Engagement with Government

Women’s correspondence with government officials, as well as their declarations under section 18A, reveal that Australian women married to aliens valued their former British nationality and rights and continued to view themselves as Australian/British. The declarations indicate that, despite their changed legal position, these women still held emotive and existential ties to their British nationality. Historian Rachel Bright argues that enemy alien women in Australia (some of whom were likely maritally denaturalised) attempted to prove their desirability as Australian citizens in their naturalisation applications during WWI.⁵² In much the same way, maritally denaturalised women emphasised their Australian birth and Australian or British parentage (where relevant), as well as their abiding affection towards Britain/Australia, to highlight their desire to be Australian and their desirability as citizens/subjects. Further, as many section 18A declarations and alien registration applications demonstrate, some maritally denaturalised women were unaware they had lost their British nationality, indicating that, in all likelihood, they considered themselves to be Australian/British.

The exact number of declarations made under section 18A of the Nationality Act is unknown. However, records indicate that between 1936 and 1948 at least 2,100 maritally denaturalised women made declarations under section 18A. To make a declaration, women requested the relevant forms from the Department of the Interior (from July 1945, such requests went to the Department of Immigration). Some women wrote directly to the secretary of the department, others contracted lawyers to oversee the process on their behalf and, occasionally, some wrote to their local member of parliament. The department then forwarded the relevant forms for the women to complete and return. During WWII, security checks were introduced. These had to be completed before further forms, identical to those already supplied, were sent with instructions to complete both copies and to send birth and marriage certificates, if these had not already been sent. A £10 administration fee also applied.

Once satisfactorily completed, the declaration was lodged with the department and the applicant or their representative was informed. Section 18A declarations were time restricted and required the applicant to submit a declaration within 12 months following her marriage. Women who applied outside this timeframe had to furnish the department with an explanation as to why their application was late. Common reasons included ignorance of the law (either not knowing about marital denaturalisation or, more commonly, not knowing about section 18A) and ignorance of the need to make a declaration: some women thought that section 18A applied automatically. Security checks were completed after a reason for the late application was provided. I only came across one rejected late application in my research: it presented a perceived security risk and will be discussed below.⁵³ This willingness to approve applications made outside of the specified time frame indicates a level of goodwill on the part of government officials and ministers, reflecting a desire to restore married women’s nationality.

On rare occasions, perceived security risks could lead to a declaration being rejected. One woman whose section 18A declaration was refused was Mavis Leonie Kai Tze Loh, née Chinn. A later application was accepted. Mavis Loh was born in Australia to Chinese parents. She was an accomplished violinist and Melbourne schoolteacher. She married Frank Kai Tze Loh, a Chinese Government official, in Melbourne in 1938 before leaving for China with her new husband. Mavis and her family were well known in Melbourne and, after her marriage, she spoke publicly of her support for China and the Chinese people, especially in relation to their struggle against the invading Japanese. In May 1941, the Age reported that Mavis had ‘told of the courage of the women in Chungking in the terrible air raids which came at very frequent intervals’, that ‘her own home [had been] bombed’ and that she had been a member of a committee:

to assist the women of China during the war period, and [i]t was her work to organise the women of the Department of Overseas Affairs [China] in their efforts for refugees and war orphans.⁵⁴

It was also reported that Mavis edited a magazine for the Chinese Department of Overseas Affairs that was ‘written in English for the department to send to the Chinese abroad in other countries’.⁵⁵

Mavis initially applied to make a declaration under section 18A in June 1939. Two years later, in August 1941, interdepartmental correspondence outlined her situation, noting:

shortly after her marriage she left Australia for China with her husband. Before her departure, Mavis asked to be supplied with the necessary form to enable her to make a declaration under the Nationality Act. In September 1939, she completed the declaration in China before a British Consul.⁵⁶

Mavis’s sister, Eunice Chinn, communicated with Australian authorities on her sister’s behalf and expressed a strong desire for her sister to retain her British nationality rights. However, her application was rejected. Eunice and Mavis were told this was because she had signed the required statutory declaration in front of the British Consul in China and not in front of a designated Australian official. However, further departmental discussions around Mavis’s application indicate that, although this was a technical reason for section 18A declarations to be rejected, her strong connections with Chinese Government officials, and the perceived security risk this carried, was the real reason her application was refused.

In March 1940, Mavis and her husband Frank, who, at the time, was the special commissioner for Chinese Overseas Affairs, visited Sydney. The 1941 interdepartmental memo noted that, while her second attempt to declare was ‘in order’, Mavis intended to ‘leave Australia with her husband’.⁵⁷ Thus, her application was once again denied, as it was ‘not the practice to permit Declarations under section 18A to be made by women who intend to leave Australia’.⁵⁸ This was not always true. Other women had been permitted to make declarations under section 18A after expressing their intention to leave Australia indefinitely and their desire to have their nationality in order before departing.⁵⁹ In Mavis’s case, the memo stated that as her ‘husband is practically a Chinese official it is suggested that it would be undesirable to grant her a concession which would enable her to travel on a British passport’.⁶⁰ Although Mavis had planned to travel with her husband, political unrest in China meant that she ended up staying in Australia. In June 1942, following another application under section 18A, the Attorney-General’s Department advised that Mavis would be remaining in Australia ‘indefinitely’ and was teaching at Melbourne Girls Grammar. Her new application was accepted with ‘no military objection’.⁶¹

Mavis’s original application was rejected because it was seen as a potential security risk to have an Australian-born, British national so closely connected with Chinese Government officials retain her British nationality rights. As well as being ethnically Chinese, her strong ties with the Chinese Government and obvious respect for, and friendship with, the Chinese people resulted in Mavis being regarded as an ‘other’ and denied access to Australian rights through section 18A. However, when Mavis was unable to return to China, her application was accepted. It was not until she was permanently settled in Australia, and her affiliation with the Chinese Government weakened, that she was treated as British/Australian again and allowed to retain her rights. This suggests that, once the security objections were resolved, she was no longer regarded as an ‘other’ against whom Australia needed protective measures, but as a member of the Australian community. That Australia and China were now fighting a common enemy, Japan, also helped her cause, even overcoming perceptions of her ‘otherness’ due to her ethnicity or race. The rarity of this situation suggests that the government usually regarded Australian women married to aliens as Australian/British and did not consider them to be a credible threat, despite alien registration restrictions. This also explains the government’s willingness to allow women to declare under section 18A specifically to circumvent alien registration restrictions.

Women’s correspondence with government departments, specifically the Departments of the Interior and Immigration, reveal that some women were not aware that they had lost their nationality until it became incumbent on them to register as aliens. Elizabeth Agnes Coon, née Jeanes, was born in Camperdown, New South Wales, on 17 December 1885. On 12 January 1910 in Sydney, she married James Coon, a Chinese man from Canton. On 24 October 1939, Elizabeth wrote to the Department of the Interior, stating:

I was advised to apply to you, as I wish, would be very pleased to resume my former status as A British Subject. I have never been out of N.S. Wales I don’t ever intend to, I have always been a good Citizen.⁶²

Elizabeth supplied details regarding her parents and her marriage and noted that her husband had been ‘resident in N.S. Wales over 50 years never at any time went out of N.S.W’. On 27 October 1939, three days after writing to the department, Elizabeth registered as an alien. In November 1939, when asked why her application under section 18A was made outside the specified 12-month period, she declared:

I did not think there was any occasion to make a Declaration, as I was born in N.S. Wales and not having any intentions to leave Australia. It was owing to the war, when all Aliens were asked to Register, I found out I had to apply to the Minister. During the time when Section 18A came into force I was in very bad health and also had financial worries. If I had known, I would have most decidedly applied before. I am very sorry I was ignorant of the matter.⁶³

Elizabeth’s reply suggests that re-naturalisation became important to individuals when they needed to access rights or did not want to be burdened by a lack of them. Her letter demonstrates a strong affinity for her Australian/British nationality. Her section 18A declaration was registered on 25 January 1940.⁶⁴

During the war, many women took advantage of section 18A to avoid alien registration requirements. The number of women who made declarations under section 18A after registering as aliens suggests that many women were informed of the provision’s existence by police officers when attempting to register. Mary Mon Ping, who married Chou Mon Ping in September 1920 in Canton, applied for a section 18A declaration form in October 1939. She stated:

I was not aware I could have my British nationality returned to me until it was necessary for aliens to register, when I was advised that before doing so, to make an application for the consideration of my case, and if granted, I would then not have to register as an alien.⁶⁵

Mary’s application was approved in January 1940. That officials had provided advice on section 18A was frequently mentioned in women’s applications, further demonstrating official support for their right to retain their nationality after marriage and the perception that they were still Australian/British, despite their formal legal status.⁶⁶

Not all women mentioned how they became aware of section 18A. Some made a declaration soon after registering as an alien, the short interval suggesting that they became aware of the existence of section 18A when registering. Marjorie Lowe, née Wong, was born in Strathfield, Sydney, on 12 March 1918. She married Wellington (Wing) Hong Lowe in Sydney on 22 August 1942.⁶⁷ On 23 September 1942, Marjorie registered as an alien. The following month she declared under section 18A. Her declaration was registered on 9 December 1942. Another woman, Rita Betsy Ping, wrote to the secretary of the Department of Immigration requesting the ‘necessary papers to regain [her] British Nationality’ on the same day she registered as an alien.⁶⁸ Her declaration was registered on 16 May 1946; by 31 May, she had produced her declaration to the local police station to have her alien registration cancelled.

For women married to ‘enemy aliens’, the effects of marital denaturalisation during wartime could be severe. Some women married to enemy aliens were interned. The Commonwealth War Book directed that: ‘As a general rule women of whatever nationality will not be interned. When the interests of public safety so demand, they will be kept in custody.’⁶⁹ A report for the secretary of the Department of Defence Co-ordination on 8 August 1940 asserted that: ‘It is not anticipated that large numbers will be affected [detained], as women are not generally so involved in organising activities inimical to the Empire as men of enemy nationality.’⁷⁰ Although internment was relatively uncommon, women married to enemy aliens still faced more restrictions than women married to ‘friendly aliens’.

Ada Shibuya’s file in the National Archives of Australia provides insight into what life was like for some maritally denaturalised women married to enemy aliens. Ada was born on 15 July 1896 in Cobram, Victoria. In 1919, she travelled to Japan where she married Haruka Shibuya. The couple had two children, Joseph and Hannah, before Haruka’s death in 1922. Following her husband’s death, Ada returned to Victoria. In 1926, she moved to Sydney where she married Sakuhei Suzuki, a Japanese man who was a long-term resident in Australia, and together they had three more children. After her second marriage, her two eldest children also went by the name Suzuki.⁷¹

On 8 December 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, Sakuhei Suzuki, who had been resident in Australia for 42 years, was interned at Liverpool Internment Camp, New South Wales. Ada had registered as an alien on 16 September 1939 when the war with Germany began. With Japan’s entry into the conflict, she became the wife of an ‘enemy alien’ and was treated with suspicion by officials. Despite this, she regarded herself as a loyal Australian woman. Sakuhei was transferred to No. 6 (Hay) Internment Camp, New South Wales, on 19 December 1941. He was moved to several other internment camps before being released on 10 September 1946. Ada’s children by her first marriage, Joseph and Hannah, having been born in Japan, were legally Japanese, and were also interned as ‘enemy aliens’ at No. 6 Internment Camp. Hannah was released on 22 May 1942. In early 1942, Ada applied to regain her British nationality under section 18(6) of the Nationality Act, which allowed wives of enemy aliens to apply to resume their British nationality. Following security checks, Ada’s application was accepted on 3 October 1942. She was granted a certificate of naturalisation, making her once again a British subject under the law.⁷² The existence of section 18(6) indicates that Australian politicians viewed Australian-born women married to enemy aliens as ‘Australian’. Section 18(6) enabled such women to regain their nationality, thereby avoiding the most severe effects of being an enemy alien.

However, even after Ada was naturalised, her request for a wireless licence was viewed with suspicion. On her alien registration questionnaire in 1939, she noted that she had given her wireless to a friend. However, when her husband was interned in December 1941, a wireless set was listed among his possessions. A letter from Sakuhei to Ada in March 1942 made reference to Ada attempting to sell a motorcycle, wireless and telephone. In October 1942, Ada applied for a Broadcast Listener’s Licence. In December that year, the deputy director of security for New South Wales wrote to the director-general of security in Canberra arguing that:

Even though Ada May Shibuya is a British Subject, in view of her background, and the possible effect it would have on local residents, it is considered desirable to ensure that wireless receiver could not be used on the premises occupied by her and her children.⁷³

Although there was no record of Ada having participated in subversive activity, her application was deemed undesirable. It was claimed that her husband still lived with her and that he was a ‘dominating force’. However, as Sakuhei was then interned, the director-general of security rejected these claims, declaring that ‘it would be unnecessarily harsh to prohibit [Ada] from having a wireless of any sort’. He suggested restricting her wireless access to medium band reception with checks conducted ‘from time to time’ to ensure her compliance.⁷⁴

Ada was advised accordingly. The deputy director of security’s reluctance to provide Ada with a wireless licence demonstrates that some level of suspicion of Australian-born wives of enemy aliens continued even after they had regained their nationality. In this case, the concern was that Ada’s enemy alien husband would gain control of the wireless and/or persuade Ada to act in a disloyal manner. However, this suspicion was mitigated by Ada’s British status and upbringing – and Sakuhei’s absence in an internment camp – and she was allowed a wireless with some restrictions.

In her letters to the government and her family, Ada displayed anti-Japanese sentiments that officials considered ‘somewhat unusual from the wife of a Japanese man’. She considered herself Australian and showed no affinity for Japanese people. She expressed frustration that her children had been interned when ‘full-blooded Japanese’ people had not been. In a letter addressed to her son Joseph on 8 May 1942, she stated:

Hannah was telling me that old Japanese woman Mrs Yeghel had been discharged 9 days ago, and as she went into camp the day after Hannah it is only natural Hannah would feel hurt. I don’t know who gave the camp permission to discharge Mrs Yeghel. What I can’t understand is Mrs. Yeghel’s son, he is a full blooded Japanese born in Australia, and [he] escapes the Military call up, and goes about at liberty, while the Australian born Japanese with Australian Mothers, are all interned.⁷⁵

Evidently, Ada considered herself to be Australian and not Japanese.

During the war, at a time of heightened patriotic feelings, women’s applications were explicit in their love for Australia and Britain. Dorothy Wong Yong Tai (discussed later) declared: ‘I have been deprived of all the rights of British citizenship since my marriage’.⁷⁶ She ‘sincerely beg[ged]’ for the retention of her nationality, which was clearly important to her. Lilian Hock Hing, née Gray, was born on 23 May 1892 in Pyrmont, Sydney. On 7 February 1916, she married Louie Hock Hing, a Chinese man, in Sydney.⁷⁷ On 16 September 1939, Lilian reported to a Sydney police station to register as an alien and, while there, heard about section 18A. Three days later, she applied to make a declaration under the section, writing directly to Prime Minister Robert Menzies. Noting her Australian birth and that both her parents were British subjects, her father having been born in England and her mother in New South Wales, she stated:

I only married my husband for my children. I was one of those women who had to get a name for my children. I am not happy and have not spoken to my husband for three years.

Lilian declared her love for Australia:

My three sons are willing and will fight for Australia and so will I if that time comes. I do not suppose I would do anything to my country – I love Australia.⁷⁸

In Lilian’s mind, her connection to Australia had never been forfeited. Even though she had been denied her nationality, she, and many others like her, still felt Australian.

During WWII, alien registration made some women feel they were being treated like criminals for the mere act of marrying a foreigner. Lilian’s application to Prime Minister Menzies demonstrates how humiliating, upsetting and difficult alien registration could be for Australian-born, maritally denaturalised women. In desperation, Lilian asked the prime minister: ‘Do you think you could do something to help me out of this so I can get back my nationality. I have been trying for a long time with the wrong people.’ She continued:

I am counted as an Alien. I do not mind that so much but when it comes to those fingerprints and photos I nearly broke my heart. I have never been in a Police Court for that in my life. Now I am made a criminal, my photo in a Police Station.⁷⁹

Clearly, alien registration could be very distressing for Australian-born women. It could also be humiliating, as Rose Inagaki explained in a letter to the Department of Defence:

If necessary of course I will fill in the papers, but both my husband and myself feel keenly loyal to the Allied Cause, feel keenly the humiliation of having to furnish a description of ourselves, in the same manner demanded of enemy residents and criminals.⁸⁰

Lilian’s and Rose’s letters suggest that alien registration was upsetting and offensive to maritally denaturalised women because it treated them like criminals, rather than as Australian women who had married foreigners.

In relation to Lilian’s case, a letter from Inspector D. R. B. Mitchell to Victoria Barracks on 10 October 1939 asserted that:

the requiring of photos and the taking of prints under clause 8 of Statutory Rule No. 88 of 1939 is discretionary, and perhaps discretion could have been exercised in regard to people who were born British and lost nationality through marriage. I have had a few bitter complaints of the nature of that made by Mrs. Hing.⁸¹

Mitchell’s suggestion that discretion be used in the taking of photographs and prints shows that Australian officials did not want to unduly distress maritally denaturalised women by insisting that they complete registrations in the same manner as other legal aliens. It demonstrates that the government and officials regarded these women differently to other aliens and criminals. Indeed, they were rarely viewed as a threat. There is no record of further correspondence between Lilian and the Prime Minister’s Office. However, it appears she made a declaration under section 18A following her initial presentation at the police station. On 28 November 1939, Lilian’s declaration was approved.

Alien registration sometimes served as the means by which Australian maritally denaturalised women discovered they had lost their nationality. This ignorance of their legal status speaks to the nature of nationality at the time and suggests that, while some Australian women married to aliens utilised the rights of their British nationality, or at least attempted to do so before becoming aware of their altered nationality status, others lacked either the means or the desire to access such rights. Further, their apparent ignorance of their changed status indicates that, even though women married to aliens legally lost their nationality, they still considered themselves – and were considered by most others – as very much Australian.

Conclusion

Marital denaturalisation, as federally legislated from 1920 to 1949, could have significant negative consequences for Australian women married to aliens. The correspondence of such women with government officials suggests that, even though they had become legal aliens, they still considered themselves to be Australian. The emotion that such women expressed in response to the loss of their nationality and the requirement to register as aliens shows that this was keenly felt. The fact that many Australian women married to aliens did not realise they had lost their nationality demonstrates that they felt themselves to be British/Australian. The need to register as aliens during WWII, a period of heightened patriotism when the loss of nationality deprived women of tangible rights and privileges, made the loss of nationality more obvious, problematic and emotionally distressing for women.

Australian politicians’ support for repealing dependent nationality, and for other legislative changes where practicable, demonstrates that women married to aliens (especially white women) were not regarded as ‘others’. The existence of sections 18(2), 18A and 18B of the Nationality Act, and the willingness to give women the tools to avoid alien registration, can also been seen as evidence that Australian politicians were in favour of restoring women’s independent nationality and did not regard (white) women married to aliens as undeserving of their British nationality. The discussion of married women’s nationality in the popular press demonstrates that there was widespread support for maritally denaturalised women and suggests that many Australians, even those unaffected by marital denaturalisation, considered such women to be Australian, despite their altered legal position. Although they were legally ‘other’, in politics, society and their own minds, by virtue of their Australian birth and assumed shared values and culture, maritally denaturalised women were still regarded as Australian/British.

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