Women were allowed along to perform these vital services, and were supported
by their husbands/fathers/brothers/protectors in the army. Although one of the
period words for "Campfollower" is "Hure", which translated to "whore", by and
large, the German women were not prostitutes. Other period terms include
"Kampfrau"(camp wife), "Marketenderin"(Women who cares (goes to the market)
for you) and "Schlachtenbummlerin"(Battle Loiterer). Most camp women were
married to the soldier they cared for, or else were related in some other way.
Brother/sister or father/daughter relationships were not uncommon. According
to the articles of war signed by every soldier, it was an offense for a man to
have more then one woman in the baggage train, unless the excess were
daughters or sisters. This kept the fighting among the women to a minimum,
for an unattached female was a threat to their security. Women who were
found prostituting themselves, especially with someone else's man, commonly
had their hair cut off and were run out of camp by other women.
It was not uncommon for one women to have many husbands in her lifetime.
Unlike their farming sisters, most campfollowers were not expected to produce
one child a year from age fifteen to thirty. As childbirth was a leading cause of
death among women, military wives had a slightly higher life expectancy then their
civilian counterparts. That, coupled with the relatively short life expectancy of the men, virtually insured that every woman would be a widow at least once.
