The U.S. military depends on military spouses. When service members are at work, on temporary duty, or deployed, their spouses pick up the burden of managing a home. They provide income, manage finances, rear children, coordinate the logistics of frequent moves, and so much more. While (typically) not in uniform, they serve their country through their in-kind contribution of time and energy. Without military spouses, the Department of Defense (DoD) would have to spend more money on a less capable and less resilient force.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that an American family collectively does about 6.5 hours of unpaid work every day. Typically, the burden falls heaviest on women. Military families likely do more unpaid work given frequent moves and other demands of military life. In addition, when a service member is deployed or otherwise gone, the burden falls entirely on his or her spouse. Even assuming just four hours a day of work and an equivalent wage value of $10 per hour, military spouses contribute more than $10 billion in value to the military enterprise. And, that’s just a crude measure of unpaid economic value. Without spousal support, military members would be less ready for and less focused on the task of national defense. The success of individual service members, and the defense enterprise writ large, is enabled by the spouses and significant others alongside them.
The use of the word “alongside” is no mistake. This is a team effort. Despite defense nomenclature labeling service members spouses as “dependents,” it is oftentimes the service member who is dependent on their spouse. While children are generally dependent on their parents, at least for some portion of their lives, this is not universally true for spouses. The label “dependent,” as used by DoD to refer to spouses, is an outdated and inaccurate term that drives bad policy decisions. It should be replaced by “partner,” “spouse,” “significant other,” or another neutral term.
History of Military Dependents
The military has a long and complicated history with the families of service members. For most of the 19th and early 20th centuries, families were viewed as a hindrance to military operations. At times, married men were prohibited from enlisting or discouraged from reenlisting. Serena Adage writes that, for much of early U.S. military history, one adage prevailed above all else: “If the Army wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one.”
The magnitude of 20th century world wars changed this dynamic. Many draftees and enlistees had families; to exclude them would have been detrimental to national security. To assuage the burden of those families, Congress passed multiple bills providing for the relief of “dependents,” the (typically) wife and/or children at home. These included the War Risk Insurance Act of 1917 and the Servicemen’s Dependence Allowance Act of 1942. Both acts sought to provide additional compensation for those with dependents. The understanding was that the ultimate test of “dependence” was a financial one.
Sexism was always built into these measures. As one author commented, “the primary obligation of a father to support his child and wife not extending to the mother as to her child and husband.” When women began to serve, they were forced to prove their husbands were truly dependent on them to receive full allowances. Under the logic of the time, women were always dependents. Men were not.
This inequality came to a head in the 1973 Supreme Court case Frontiero v. Richardson. In 1968, Lieutenant Sharron Frontiero joined the Air Force. A year later, she married a civilian. However, because her husband did not depend on Lieutenant Frontiero for more than half of his financial needs (the test for dependency), the Air Force denied Lieutenant Frontiero’s request to claim her husband as a dependent. Lieutenant Frontiero sued the federal government and, eventually, the case went to the Supreme Court.
There, her legal team argued that there were in fact two layers of discrimination. One was procedural: women were required to prove their husbands were dependents, but not vice versa. The second was substantive: even in cases in which women were not dependent on their military spouses financially, the couple still received extra benefits. Then-Professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg discussed before the court the inaccurate stereotype of the day that “the man is, or should be, the independent partner in a marital unit. The woman, with an occasional exception, is dependent, sheltered from breadwinning experience.”
Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the military’s policy was unconstitutional. Lieutenant Frontiero would receive dependent benefits even though her husband had an income of his own. Men and women would both be granted the status of having dependents once married, regardless of income. All spouses would be labeled “dependents,” regardless of their status.
Obviously, “dependent” applies to more than spouses. Besides children, other examples could include a parent, grandparent, disabled child over the age of 21, or a sibling. There are many reasons why these groups could, and should, be labeled as dependents. The argument here merely contends that the use of the word “dependent” is inaccurate for spouses. Future thinking should, however, address whether the word choices for other groups are appropriate.
Words Matter
Language drives perception. The United States does not refer to its soldiers as “war-makers”; it refers to them as “service members.” The United States does not have a Department of War (anymore), it has a Department of Defense. These word choices subtly influence how the public perceives these people and organizations. The same is true of the word “dependent.”
Today, most military households are dual-career, meaning both the service member and their spouse have careers. Alongside 1.2 million military personnel are approximately 700,000 military spouses. Currently, approximately 64 percent of them are in the workforce. While the demands of military life leave spouses chronically unemployed and underemployed, this is oftentimes because of failures in military policy-making, not personal choice. Regardless, most military spouses have incomes of their own. They are independent, and their service and sacrifice to the country is significant. They are not “dependents,” they are depended on.
Nevertheless, because of the language the military uses and the policies it engenders, spouses are constantly dealt indignities. A spouse with a successful career is asked if they are a “dependent,” by on-base medical personnel. They are forced to move around the country because the military does not consider their careers a priority outside of goodwill or dual-military families. They provide essential support at home, yet they are labeled inaccurately as dependents. They are asked to participate in spouse networks, bake sales, and other fundraisers to “support the unit.” While their time might command hundreds of dollars per hour in the civilian sector, the military asks them to give it for free. They are, after all, dependents. Implicit in policy and language, they are a side show; they are the supporting act.
More Than a Word
The military is struggling with recruitment and retention. Part of its problem is how it treats families—especially spouses. As Ryan Pallas points out in The Sinking Ship of Theseus, the demands of modern military life are oftentimes incongruous with a spouse’s career aspirations. Many service members choose to leave the service in part so their spouse can advance in their career. Numerous proposed policies sidestep the issue. It is not just about making it easier for spouses to be dependents and still pursue their own careers, it is about treating spouses as partners.
Private sector organizations already do this. For example, at many management consulting firms, it is not uncommon to allow transfers to new locations in support of a spouse’s career. Additionally, firms may pay extra for their employee to commute from the new location. In turn, support for that employee and their family creates loyalty (retention) and productivity. “Recruit the member, retain the family,” as the saying goes.
Certain parts of the government are already doing this. For example, some federal agencies will reimburse the travel costs of remote-working military spouses. In addition, joint-spouse programs aim to assist service members with spouses in the military. The Marine Corps’ Talent Management 2030 plan allows service members to stay at the same base for longer periods; this is especially helpful for those who might have a working spouse. However, broader innovation and thoughtful action requires a change in mindset; it requires that the military view spouses not merely as a supporting act, but as part of a team.
Better Words
Some policy changes could be prohibitively costly or require drastic changes to personnel policies. However, a simple word change would be an easy first step. DoD should eliminate use of the word dependent to describe spouses. Instead, “dependent,” should either be used to describe children and other dependents or eliminated entirely. In its place, DoD should use the term, “spouse,” “partner,” “significant other,” or another neutral term to describe those married to service members. This would align DoD language with the language of the Internal Revenue Service. There, spouses are spouses and dependents are dependents. One does not claim a spouse as a “dependent,” regardless of income.
This proposed change would have three immediate benefits. First, by changing how DoD “talks” about spouses, it would assist reformers in thinking about personnel issues in new ways. Second, it would help ameliorate unconscious biases surrounding the role of military spouses. Lastly, it would act as a sign of good faith to military spouses that their sacrifice and effort is not unnoticed.
One challenge with a new word choice would be that benefits are dependent (no pun intended) on being legally married. Thus, while a word choice such as, “significant other,” or, “partner,” might be the best from an inclusivity standpoint, it might also cause confusion. For example, an unmarried service member may refer to their fiancée as a “significant other” even though they are not legally married and thus would receive no military benefits. It will be important to consider the implications of any specific word choice; nevertheless, this “problem” illustrates one of the advantages of word changes. It forces policymakers to think about problems in new ways. Should dependent benefits solely be awarded to those who are legally married? These are the questions 21st-century personnel policies should consider.
A plan for wording reform would not be without opposition. Critics might argue that such a proposal would wreak havoc on military personnel systems; if current systems are too brittle to accommodate such a change, then they are likely too brittle for future personnel policies anyway. Similarly, changing verbiage across numerous websites and policy documents would come at some cost. However, the military already spends money upgrading systems and revising policies; changing verbiage as part of an upgrade or update could keep costs manageable. Others might argue that the change is pure semantics, but semantics matter. The most important critic of such a proposal would be a spouse who potentially did not want a different label. Therefore, the military should survey current spouses on the proposal before executing on it. This would also give spouses agency in the process, again showing them that the military truly cared about their opinions.
Military spouses are part of the team. They are partners in a service member’s journey. The military should talk like it, too.
