While Canadian women who worked in war industry or served in the armed forces were reluctant to take up paid domestic service after the war, they did not resist marriage. According to the Vancouver Sun, 18 000 weddings had taken place in Canada between servicewomen and servicemen by February 1945. Even before hostilities ended in Europe on 7 May 1945, the Canadian armed forces had adopted a demobilization policy of giving priority in requests for discharge to married women, including newly weds.
Advertisements and articles in women's magazines reflected and reinforced the marrying trend. While the "debs" of Woodbury facial soap ads from 1940 to 1944 were shown as actively engaged in war work, the "debs" of 1945-46 were shown in bridal gowns carrying bouquets as they married officers or ex-officers. As early as 1943, Community Silverplate came out with advertisements on the theme "There'll Come a Day," one of which is reproduced here, which invited every young woman to dream of the romantic moment when the love of her life would come "home for keeps" and "kisses will be real, not paper." Such phrases as "see again that light in his eyes when he looks at you," "hear again that deep ring of his voice for you alone," and "feel again a strong pair of arms that just fit you" could not help but raise the hopes of aspiring brides.
A more sombre and business-like note was struck by the beauty editor of Chatelaine magazine in a February 1945 piece designed to prepare married women who had lived apart from their husbands during the war for the day "When That Man's Here Again." The article ended with the ultimatum: "It's up to you to decide what you want most - to walk alone and continue to be your own boss, or to make concessions and have a man in your life." Whether viewed romantically as love and kisses or more soberly as a contract requiring the woman's subordination to the man, marriages were on the increase. As the age at first marriage dropped, the rate of marriage for women in Canada rose. For women aged twenty through twenty-four it rose from seventy five per thousand in 1937 to one hundred per thousand in 1954, and for those aged fifteen through nineteen it rose from thirty per thousand in 1937 to sixty-two per thousand in 1954.
