In many of the spouses’ associations in Europe there is on-going debate as to where the lines should be drawn between choice and duty and between voluntary versus paid work. It needs stressing that there is still a wide spectrum of opinion, and in the case of the British Service, this can be illustrated through two quotes. The first is from a speech given by the Chairman during a seminar which the BDSA held with the Administration on Role, Recognition and Recompense for Spouses in 1995 where she said "It is a case of the role is dead, long live the role! We face a difficult contradiction. We do not want this role and yet we perform it. We even say that we choose to do it and then, of course, as we do it, it comes to be expected." The second is from a reply to one of the questionnaires in our survey. In answer to the question of which measures she felt could be taken to improve her contentment with her role as a spouse of a Foreign Service officer, a woman aged 31 and married to a Second Secretary replied "the whole problem as I see it is that I don’t see this as my role; my role is too connected with my own sense of identity, i.e. my life, career and children. The fact that my husband happens to be a diplomat is his business and I go abroad not because of his job or because of any transferred sense of role as his wife but simply because I choose to spend my life with him and not with the DS." It could be added that her view was not by any means the most extreme; one spouse, to the question "which duties as a diplomatic spouse do you think deserve pay or recompense?" replied "just being married to a diplomat!"

Amidst all these different views, two trends can be detected. First, spouses feel uncertain about their role and its future and morale is often low. This clearly emerged from the comments made by the spouses who responded both to the BDSA survey this year and to the one undertaken by the Austrians, that morale is generally low. The study undertaken by the Austrians revealed that morale tended to be far lower amongst junior officers and their spouses. Although in the British case this does not seem to be the case, there was the impression, shared by the Austrians, that more effort needs to be made to involve and reflect the views of younger spouses and those married to junior officers. The responses to the BDSA survey revealed a tremendous division of opinion over whether the supporting role of the spouse will continue into the 21st century: 53% believed it would; 41% thought not and 6% did not know.

Second, although at present, in most European countries, the majority of spouses do continue to accompany their spouses to post and to "opt in" whilst at post, there is a growing sense that greater recognition and some form of remuneration is due, particularly in the case of the work undertaken by Heads of Mission spouses. In the BDSA survey, the overwhelming majority - 81.5% - believed that spouses should be recompensed for duties associated with the role. Those who replied negatively frequently gave the time-honoured reason for this: that it would remove the element of choice. The respondents to the Swiss survey also raised the question of remuneration, even though this was not directly asked. In the Austrian case, 60% of the respondents expressed disappointment at the lack of recognition they received from their Ministry - this was particularly true of those over 50 and those married to more senior officers.