Fellowship of Marriage

Even before the First World War, the Mothers' Union was aware that it needed to adopt new methods in order to attract younger members. Its first attempt, the Young Wives Fellowship, ended when the Fellowship sought independence from the MU in 1920. In 1921 however the Fellowship of Marriage came into being. This proved a more successful means of bringing in younger members as members of the Fellowship joined the MU on becoming mothers. Thanks in part to the Campaign groups of the later years of the Second World War, which were created to attract younger women to the MU, the number of Fellowship groups was at its highest in the mid 1940s. It ceased to exist in 1945, however, following the report of the Commission on Fellowship of Marriage, appointed by Central Council. The Commission found that the Fellowship was regarded as too separate an organisation from the Mothers' Union, and consequently did not feed sufficiently into the main branches. As recommended by the Commission, a central department, the Young Members' Department, was created in 1945 to take up the mission of the Fellowship of Marriage.

See MU /YM for the records of the Young Members' Department; the records of the Young Wives Fellowship following its split from the Mothers' Union, are held at the Women's Library, Aldgate, London (ref. 5WFE).