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diff --git a/15420.txt b/15420.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c15c69c --- /dev/null +++ b/15420.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5121 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Broken Homes, by Joanna C. Colcord + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Broken Homes + A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment + +Author: Joanna C. Colcord + +Release Date: March 20, 2005 [EBook #15420] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROKEN HOMES *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the +PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +_SOCIAL WORK SERIES_ + +BROKEN HOMES + +A STUDY OF FAMILY DESERTION AND +ITS SOCIAL TREATMENT + +_By_ +JOANNA C. COLCORD + +SUPERINTENDENT OF THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY +OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK + +NEW YORK +RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION +1919 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY +THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION + +WM F. FELL CO PRINTERS +PHILADELPHIA + + + + +PREFACE + + +No less thoughtful a critic of men and manners than Joseph Conrad has +remarked recently that a universal experience "is exactly the sort of +thing which is most difficult to appraise justly in the individual +instance." The saying might have been made the motto of this book, for +in its pages Miss Colcord--with all the eagerness of the newer school of +social workers, bent upon understanding, upon making allowances--seeks +that just appraisal to which Conrad refers. Marital infelicities and +broken homes are not universal, fortunately, but some of the human +weaknesses which lead to them are very nearly so. + +To one who brings a long perspective to any theme in social work, Broken +Homes suggests the successive stages through which the art of social +case work has progressed. Twenty years ago the editor of this Series was +responsible for the following sentences in an annual report: "One of our +most difficult problems has been how to deal with deserted wives with +children.... One good woman, whose husband had left her for the second +time more than a year ago, declared often and emphatically that she +would never let him come back. We rescued her furniture from the +landlord, found her work, furnished needed relief, and befriended the +children; but the drunken and lazy husband returned the other day, and +is sitting in the chairs we rescued, while he warms his hands at the +fire that we have kept burning." + +The passage belongs to the first and what might be termed the "muddling +along" period of dealing with family desertion, but the fact that boards +of directors actually were willing to print such frank statements about +their own shortcomings was a sign that the period was drawing to a +close. + +This first stage was succeeded by a disciplinary period, in which +earnest attempts were made to enact laws that would punish the deserter +and aid in his extradition whenever he took refuge across a state line. +Laws of the strictest, and these well enforced, seemed for a while the +only possible solution. + +Then gradually, with the unfolding of a philosophy and a technique of +helping people in and through their social relationships, a new way of +dealing with this ancient and perplexing human failing was developed. +This third way involved a more careful analysis of relationships and +motives, a greater variety in approach, an increased flexibility in +treatment, a new faith, perhaps, in the re-creative powers latent in +human nature. But it is unnecessary to enlarge upon a point of view +which these pages admirably illustrate. Desertion laws continue to serve +a definite purpose, as Miss Colcord makes clear, but no longer are they +either the first or the second resort of the skilful probation officer, +family case worker, or child protective agent. + +Just after the Russell Sage Foundation published a treatise on Social +Diagnosis two years ago, a number of letters came to the author urging +that a volume on the treatment of social maladjustments in individual +cases follow. But this second subject is not yet ready for the large +general treatise. A topic so new as social case treatment must be +developed aspect by aspect, preferably in small, practical volumes each +written by a specialist. This is such a volume, and Miss Colcord breaks +new ground, moreover, in that her book illustrates the whole present +trend of social work as applied to individuals. + +Grateful acknowledgment should be made to the social case workers who +have furnished valuable contributions to the body of data gathered for +the present study. Miss Colcord wishes mention made of her especial +indebtedness to Miss Betsey Libbey, Miss Helen Wallerstein and Miss +Elizabeth Wood of Philadelphia; Mr. C.C. Carstens and Miss Elizabeth +Holbrook of Boston; Mrs. A.B. Fox and Mr. J.C. Murphy of Buffalo; Miss +Caroline Bedford of Minneapolis; Mr. Stockton Raymond of Columbus; Mrs. +Helen Glenn Tyson of Pittsburgh; Mr. Arthur Towne of Brooklyn; Mr. E.J. +Cooley, Mr. Charles Zunser, Mr. Hiram Myers, and Miss Mary B. Sayles of +New York. Many others not here mentioned were untiring in answering +questions and furnishing needed information. + +MARY E. RICHMOND +_Editor of the Social Work Series_ +NEW YORK, May, 1919. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + I. INTRODUCTION 7 + II. WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 17 + III. CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 50 + IV. FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 65 + V. FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION 91 + VI. THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 106 + VII. THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (_Continued_) 125 +VIII. THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 149 + IX. NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 164 + X. NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT 185 +INDEX 201 + + + + +BROKEN HOMES + +I + +INTRODUCTION + + +It has frequently been said that desertion is the poor man's divorce +but, like many epigrams, this one hardly stands the test of experience. +When examined closely it is neither illuminating nor, if the testimony +of social case workers can be accepted, is it true. It is true, of +course, that many of the causes of domestic infelicity which lead to +divorce among the well-to-do may bring about desertion among the less +fortunate, but the deserting man does not, as a rule, consider his +absences from home as anything so final and definite as divorce. + +In a study of desertion made by the Philadelphia Society for Organizing +Charity in 1902,[1] it was found that 87 per cent of the men studied +had deserted more than once. The combined experience of social workers +goes to show that a comparatively small number of first deserters make +so complete a break in their marital relations that they are never heard +from again, and that an even smaller number actually start new families +elsewhere, although no statistical proof of this last statement is +available. One social worker of experience says that in her judgment +desertion, instead of being a poor man's divorce, comes nearer to being +a poor man's vacation. + + A man who had always been a good husband and father was discharged + from hospital after a long and exhausting illness and returned to + his family--wife and seven children--in their five-room tenement. + Ten days later he disappeared suddenly, but reappeared some two + weeks later in very much better health and ready to resume his + occupation and the care of his family. His explanation of his + apparent desertion was that he was unable to stand the confusion of + his home and "had needed rest." He had "beaten his way" to + Philadelphia and visited a friend there. + +The reporter of the foregoing remarks that it illustrates "unconscious +self-therapy," and that the patient's disappearance might have been +avoided if the services of a good medical-social department had been +available at the hospital where the man was treated. + +It is more difficult to justify the thirst for experience of another +deserting husband who came to the office of a family social agency after +an absence of a few months, with effusive thanks for the care of his +family and the explanation that he "had always wanted to see the West, +and this had been the only way he could find of accomplishing it." + +In fact, case work has convinced social workers that there are few +things less permanent than desertion. In itself this provisional quality +tends to create irritation in the minds of many of the profession. It is +upsetting to plan for a deserted family which stops being deserted, so +to speak, overnight. But in their understandable despair social workers +sometimes overlook essential facts about the nature of marriage. The +_permanence_ of family life is one of the foundation stones of their +professional faith; yet they may fail to recognize certain +manifestations of this permanence as part and parcel of the end for +which they are striving. They would see no point in the practice adopted +by a certain social agency which deals with many cases of family +desertion. This society, when it has had occasion to print copies of a +deserter's photograph to use in seeking to discover his present +whereabouts, often presents his wife with an enlargement of the picture +suitable for framing. The procedure displays, nevertheless, a profound +insight not only into human nature but into the human institution called +marriage. + +In the next chapter will be considered some of the causes that make men +leave their homes. To deal effectively with the situation created by +desertion, however, we have need of a wider knowledge than this. Not +only what takes men away but what keeps them from going, what brings +them back, what leads to their being forgiven and received into their +homes again, are matters that seriously concern the social case worker. +What is it that makes this plant called marriage so tough of fiber and +so difficult to eradicate from even the most unfriendly soil? + +It is fortunate (since the majority of case workers are unmarried) that +simply to have been a member of a family gives one some understanding of +these questions. The theorist who maintains that marriage is purely +economic, or that it is entirely a question of sex, has either never +belonged to a real family or has forgotten some of the lessons he +learned there. + +Many volumes have been written upon the history of marriage, or rather +of the family, since, as one historian justly puts it, "marriage has its +source in the family rather than the family in marriage."[2] In all +these studies the influence of law, of custom, of self-interest, and of +economic pressure, is shown to have molded the institution of marriage +into curious shapes and forms, some grievous to be borne. But is it not +after all the crystallized and conventionalized records of past time +which have had to be used as the source material of such studies, and +could the spiritual values of the family in any period be found in its +laws and learned discourses? We might rather expect to find students of +these sources preoccupied with the outward aspects, the failures, the +unusual instances. It is as true of human beings as of nations, that the +happy find no chronicler. "Out of ... interest and joy in caring for +children in their weakness and watching that weakness grow to strength, +family life came into being and has persisted."[3] It is hardly +conceivable that in any society, however primitive, there were not some +real families--even when custom ran otherwise--in which marriage meant +love and kindness and the mutual sharing of responsibilities. And these +families, today as always, are the creators and preservers of the +spiritual gains of the human race. It has been beautifully said of the +family in such a form, that "it is greater than love itself, for it +includes, ennobles, makes permanent, all that is best in love. The pain +of life is hallowed by it, the drudgery sweetened, its pleasures +consecrated. It is the great trysting-place of the generations, where +past and future flash into the reality of the present. It is the great +storehouse in which the hardly-earned treasures of the past, the +inheritance of spirit and character from our ancestors, are guarded and +preserved for our descendants. And it is the great discipline through +which each generation learns anew the lesson of citizenship that no man +can live for himself alone."[4] It follows that the most trying and +discouraging feature of social work with deserted wives; namely, their +determination to take worthless men back and back again for another +trial, is often only a further manifestation of the extraordinary +viability of the family. + +It is true that, into this enduring quality, many elements enter, some +homely or merely material. A desire for support, or for a resumption of +sex relations, may play a part in a wife's decision to forgive the +wanderer. There are many other factors--use and wont; pride in being +able to show a good front to the neighbors; a feeling that it is +unnatural to be receiving support from other sources. Just the mere +desire to have his clothes hanging on the wall and the smell of his pipe +about, the hundreds of small details that go to make up the habit of +living together, have each their separate pull on the woman whose +instinct to be wife and mother to her erring man is urging her to give +in; Home is, in both their minds, + + " ... the place where when you have to go there + They have to take you in.... + Something you somehow haven't to deserve."[5] + +A woman who had left her home town and found clerical work in a strange +city, in order not to be near her syphilitic husband from whom she had +determined to separate, said, "When you've been married to a man, you +can't get over feeling your place is with him." + +However we may deplore the results in a given case, the spineless woman +who takes her husband back many times may nevertheless be giving a +demonstration of the thing we are most interested in conserving--the +durability and persistence of the family. And so the social worker who +is enabled by experience or imagination to enter into the real meaning +of family life is neither scornful nor amused when Mrs. Finnegan is +found, on the morning when her case against Finnegan is to come up in +the domestic relations court, busily washing and ironing his other shirt +in order that he may make a proper appearance and not disgrace the +family before the judge. + + * * * * * + +An attempt will be made in this small book to analyze some causal +factors in the problem of the deserter, to touch upon recent changes in +the attitude of social workers toward deserted families, to present +illustrations from the best discoverable practice in the treatment of +desertion, and to suggest certain possible next steps, both on the legal +and on the social side. For lack of space, it will be impossible to +consider the closely related problems of the deserting wife, the +unmarried mother, or the divorced couple. It is assumed throughout that +the reader is familiar with the general theory of modern case work; and +no more is here attempted than to give a number of suggestions which +will be found to be practical, it is hoped, when the social worker deals +with the home marred and broken by desertion, or when he seeks to +prevent this evil by such constructive measures as are now possible. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Philadelphia Society for +Organizing Charity, p. 25. + +[2] Goodsell, Willystine: The Family as a Social and Educational +Institution, p. 8. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1915. + +[3] Byington, Margaret F.: Article on "The Normal Family," _Annals of +the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, May, 1918. + +[4] Bosanquet, Helen: The Family, p. 342. London, Macmillan & Co., 1906. + +[5] Frost, Robert: North of Boston, p. 20. New York, Henry Holt & Co., +1915. + + + + +II + +WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? + + +"Before the deserter there was a broken man," said a district secretary +who has had conspicuous success in dealing with such men. By this +characterization she meant not necessarily a physical or mental wreck, +but a man bankrupt for the time being in health, hopes, prospects, or in +all three; a man who lacked the power or the will to dominate adverse +conditions, who had allowed life to overcome him. Such an unfortunate +may not be conscious of his own share in bringing about the difficulties +in which he finds himself, but he is always aware that something has +gone seriously wrong in his life. His grasp of this fact is the one sure +ground upon which the social worker can meet him at the start. + +We should distinguish between the _causes_ that bring about a given +desertion, and the _conscious motives in the mind of the deserter_. It +is well for the social worker to make the latter the starting point in +dealing with the man, accepting the most preposterous as at least worthy +of discussion. The absconder is often too inarticulate and ill at ease +to give a clear picture of what was in his mind when he went away. If he +was out of work, it may have been a perfectly sincere belief that he +would find work elsewhere, or perhaps only a speculative hope that he +might. (These are not in the beginning genuine desertions, but often +become so later on.) It is possible that, beset by irritations and +perplexities, the thought of cutting his way out at one stroke from all +his difficulties made an appeal too strong to be resisted. Or perhaps he +flung out of the house and away, in a passion of anger and jealousy +which later crystallized into cold dislike. The spell of an infatuation +for another woman might well have been the cause; or he may have been +mentally deranged through alcohol. Simple weariness of the burden which +he has not strength of body or mind to carry and ought never to have +assumed is one attitude to be reckoned with, and failure to realize or +in his heart accept the binding nature of his obligations is another. + +His temperamental instability may have been such that the desire for a +change--the "wanderlust"--was driving him to distraction. Or perhaps, +under the urge of his own subconscious feeling of failure, he may have +convinced himself that if he could "shake" the old environment and all +in it that hampered him, he could take a fresh start and make good. "If +I could only get to California," sighed Patrick Donald,[6] "I have a +feeling things would be different." With too much imagination to be +content with the situation in which he found himself, Donald had not +imagination enough to realize that he would have to take his old self +with him wherever he went, and that he might better fight things out +where he stood. Men of his sort yearn constantly for the future, not +realizing that in its truest sense the present _is_ the future. + +Only in rare instances will the deserter accept the entire +responsibility for his act. To try to find justification for doing what +we want to do is characteristic of human beings, and the deserter is no +exception. He attempts to "rationalize" his conduct and so regain his +sense of self-approval and well-being by finding excuses and +justifications in the conduct of others. Even when the fault is all his, +he usually succeeds in making himself believe that his wife is more to +blame than he for his having left home.[7] The social worker who +attempts to deal with the situation the deserter creates should know +this attitude in advance and be prepared, through some simple +rule-of-thumb psychology, to attack the obsession and bring him, first +of all, to see and face squarely his own responsibility. + +Many blanket theories have been developed to explain desertion--that it +is due to economic pressure; that it is the result of bad housekeeping; +that its causes can all be reduced to sex incompatibility. All these +factors: undoubtedly have their bearing on the problem, but there is no +one cause or group of causes underlying breakdowns in family morale. The +ratio of desertions has been observed to decrease rather than to +increase in "hard times";[8] moreover, it is a matter of common +observation that not all slovenly and incompetent wives are deserted, +and that many married couples in all walks of life whose sex +relationships are unsatisfactory, nevertheless maintain the fabric of +family life and support and bring up their children with an average +degree of success. None of these three factors alone will serve, +therefore, as a fundamental causation unit in desertion. Many +statistical attempts have been made to study the causes of desertion, +and to assign to each its mathematical percentage of influence. The +report of a court of domestic relations gives such an analysis of over +1,500 cases, listing 25 causes, and carefully calculating the percentage +of cases due to each. A summary of these percentages grouped under five +heads is as follows: + + _Percentage_ +1. Distinct sex factors 39.03 +2. Alcohol and narcotic drugs 37.00 +3. Temperamental traits 15.40 +4. Economic issues 6.27 +5. Mental and physical troubles 2.30 + ------ + 100.00 + +It would be easy to criticize the foregoing on the score of grouping. +Can alcoholism and drug addiction be separated from mental and physical +disorders? And how distinguish infallibly between sex factors, +temperamental traits, and mental disabilities? But the main defect in +such statistical studies is that they assume in each case one cause, or +at least one cause sufficiently dominant to dwarf the rest; and few of +the causes listed are really fundamental. The mind instinctively begins +to reach back after the causes of all these causes. The social worker +who made the sweeping assertion that there are two great reasons for +marital discord--"selfishness in men and peevishness in women,"--came a +good deal nearer to an accurate statement of fact with infinitely less +trouble. + +Looked at from the point of view of the social worker, desertion is +itself only a symptom of some more deeply seated trouble in the family +structure. The problem presented, if it could have been recognized in +time, is not essentially different from what it would have been before +the man's departure. Without attempting, therefore, any statistical +analysis of the causes of desertion, we may nevertheless be able to +examine one by one a number of possible _contributory factors_ in +marital unhappiness and therefore in desertion. No attempt will be made +in the list that follows to distinguish between primary and secondary +causes, nor to arrange them in any order of importance. An effort to get +from case workers lists so arranged resulted only in confusion, each +person emphasizing a different set of factors. The groupings here given, +therefore, are no more than a placing of the more obviously related +factors together and a leading from past history up to the present. + +Considering first the personal as distinguished from the community +factors in desertion, these may be listed as follows: + + +CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE MAN AND WOMAN + +1. Actual Mental Deficiency.--Character weaknesses such as were spoken +of earlier in this chapter grade down by degrees into real mental defect +or disorder, and not even the psychiatrist can always draw the line. + +A physician connected with the Municipal Court in Boston gives as his +opinion that while the percentage of actually insane or feeble-minded +among deserters is no higher than among other offenders they are +extremely likely to present some of the phenomena of psychopathic +personality. Such people have to be studied by the social worker and the +psychiatrist, and not from the behavior side only, but with a view to +discovering what sort of equipment for life was handed down to them from +their family stock. + + The plan for the future of a fifteen-year-old boy which was made by + a society for family social work was markedly modified when it was + discovered that not only his father but his grandfather had been a + man of violent and abusive temper, who drank habitually and + neglected their family obligations. With this sort of heredity and + an ineffective mother, whom he was accustomed to seeing treated with + abuse and disrespect, it was felt important to remove the boy, who + showed some promise, to surroundings where he could be under firm + discipline and learn decent standards of family life. + +Feeble-mindedness, closely connected as it usually is with industrial +inefficiency in the man, bad housekeeping in the woman, and lack of +self-control in both, is of course, a potent factor in non-support and +probably also in desertion. + +2. Faults in Early Training.--To low ideals of home life and of +personal obligation, which were imbibed in youth, can be traced much +family irresponsibility. It is by no means the rule, however, for +children always to follow in the footsteps of weak or vicious parents; +and it is the experience of social workers that such children, taught by +observation to avoid the faults seen in their own homes, often make good +parents themselves. Perhaps even more insidious in its effect on later +marital history is the home in which no self-control is learned. The +so-called "good homes" in which children are exposed to petting, +coddling, and overindulgence--and these homes are not confined to the +wealthy--produce adults who do not stand up to their responsibilities. A +probation officer in Philadelphia tells of the mother of a young +deserter who could not account for her son's delinquency. "He _ought_ to +be a good boy," she complained; "I carried him up to bed myself every +night till he was eleven years old." + +3. Differences in Background.--Even though both man and wife come from +good homes, if those homes are widely different in standards and in +cultural background strains may develop in later life between the +couple. Differences in race, religion and age are recognized as having a +causative relation to desertion. Miss Brandt[9] found that, in about 28 +per cent of the cases where these facts were ascertained, the husband +and wife were of different nationality. "In the general population of +the United States in 1900 only 8.5 per cent was of mixed parentage, and +for New York City the proportion was less than 13 per cent.... A +difference in nationality was more than twice as frequent among the +cases of desertion as among the general population of the city where it +is most common." Miss Brandt's figures for difference of religion are +less significant, but it existed in 19 per cent of the total number of +cases for which information on this point was available. In 27 per cent +of the families where age-facts were learned, there were differences of +over six years between the two; in 15 per cent the woman was older than +the man. + +Other differences which should find mention under this heading are those +that arise when the environment is changed by immigration. The man who +precedes his wife by many years in coming to America has often outgrown +her when she finally joins him, even if he has formed no other family +ties. The handicap is not wholly overcome when the couple come to this +country together, for the much greater opportunities of the man to +learn American ways may drive a wedge between him and his wife. On the +other hand it is a popular saying, particularly among young Italian +immigrants, that girls who have been in America too long do not make +good wives, that when a man wants to marry he had better send for a girl +from the old country; and these marriages seem on the whole to turn out +well. + +4. Wrong Basis of Marriage.--Included here should be hasty marriages, +mercenary marriages, marriages entered into unwillingly after pregnancy +had occurred, as well as marriages where coercion was a factor for other +reasons.[10] + +When there have been sex relations before marriage, unless the custom of +the community sanctions such intimacy, there are likely to develop +jealousies, quarrels, and ill feeling. "He do be always castin' it up at +me, but sure, 'twas himself was to blame" is one version of the age-old +story. + +There should also be included here those irregular unions called +"common law marriages," which are still permitted in many of our states. +The protection supposed to be afforded to the woman by this institution +is mainly fictitious, as it is practically impossible to secure +conviction for bigamy if one of the marriages was of the common law +variety. A common law husband who deserts, even if he admits his wife's +legal claim upon him, does not feel morally bound; and this fact +undoubtedly plays its part in the causation of such desertions.[11] + +5. Lack of Education.--More is included under this title than scanty +"book-learning." Not only the morally undisciplined child but the +mentally undisciplined youth is handicapped as spouse and parent. +Ignorance of the physical and spiritual bases of married life is a +potent cause of desertion. So also is a limited industrial equipment. +Irregular school attendance, early "working papers," a dead-end job with +no educational possibilities in it--these form a frequent background +for later unsuccess in life and in marriage. + + There seemed at first no good explanation for the desertion of + Alfred West. Both his record and his wife's were good, and their + mutual fondness for the children seemed a strong bond. They + constantly bickered, however, over the small income Alfred was able + to earn, and his wife and her relatives "looked down" upon him as + being lower than they in the social scale. Inquiry into past history + showed that he had grown up in a southern community where there were + no facilities for education, and that he could not even read and + write until after his marriage. Although of average capacity, he was + restricted by his early lack of training in his choice of a job; and + the mortification and sense of inferiority which his wife fostered + led to discouragement and indifference, which ended in desertion. A + thorough understanding of the two backgrounds involved enabled a + social worker to effect a real reconciliation, with the woman's eyes + opened to her ungenerous behavior and the man taking steps to + improve his education in a night school. + +6. Occupational Faults.--Closely allied to the foregoing, and in some +respects growing out of it, are the shortcomings on the employment side +that contribute to marital instability. Most of these can be referred +back to lack of education or opportunity in youth, or to defects of +character. Laziness, incompetence, lack of skill in any trade, lack of +application, or, on the other hand, the possession by a man with no +business "stake" in the community of a trade at which he can work +wherever he takes a fancy to go, or of a trade which is seasonal and +shifting--all these have a direct relation to desertion. + +The wife's competence and willingness to earn often seems to have a +causal connection with the man's failure as "provider."[12] + +Corresponding to and complementing the man's industrial defects, and +springing from the same causes, is the woman's failure in the business +of being a housewife. The wife's laziness, incompetence, lack of +interest, and lack of skill and knowledge create, as one case worker +puts it, "the sort of home that tends to get itself deserted." These +faults of the wife are responsible for as many desertions, probably, as +are the faults of the husband. When the man and the wife are both +industrial failures we get the extremity of family breakdown to be found +in records of "chronic non-support" cases. + +7. Wanderlust.--As a cause of family desertion this has probably been +overestimated. Some item of this sort appears in every list of causes of +desertion which has ever been compiled, and there are more or less +exceptional cases in which it probably plays a part. The boy who becomes +a vagabond in childhood and early takes to the road does not, however, +seem to be a marrying man; and the instances from case work in which it +is clear that the thirst for adventure was at the bottom of desertion +are rare. The man whose line of work before marriage led him from place +to place seems, in fact, hardly to contribute his quota to the ranks of +wife-deserters, and it is unusual to find sailors or other wanderers +from force of circumstance figuring among them. + +8. Money Troubles.--As has already been said, it is impossible to show +any direct relation between small incomes and desertion. The connection +between low wage and non-support is of course a great deal closer. The +inadequate income unquestionably acts indirectly to break down family +morale in much the same way as does lowered physical vitality. + +But marital discord that springs from the _handling_ of the family +finances is another matter, and it recurs regularly in the history of +what went on prior to desertion. One deserter, traced to a southern +city, returned voluntarily and begged the assistance of the social +worker interested to reform his wife's spending habits. "I made good +money and I never opened my pay envelope on her," said he, "but the +week's wages was always gone by Thursday." Many men, however, who make a +boast of turning over unbroken pay envelopes to their wives borrow back +so much in daily advances that their net contribution is only a fraction +of their wages. + +Some desertions brought about by financial difficulties are not, +strictly speaking, marital problems at all. Debts resulting from his own +extravagance or dishonesty may cause a man to leave home to escape +prosecution or disgrace. One such man kept in touch with his family, +sending money at irregular intervals for some years, but always moving +on to another place before he could be found. It proved impossible to +get in communication with him, and finally he stopped writing and +disappeared. + +9. Ill Health: Physical Debility.--All social workers agree that +physical condition plays a part, though usually only indirectly and +secondarily, in causing desertion. In the man, it may lower his +vitality, cause irregular work, and superinduce a condition of +despondency and readiness to give in. In the woman, it brings about +careless housekeeping, loss of attractiveness, and disinclination to +marital intercourse--all factors which contribute directly to desertion. +Continued ill health of the wife brings burdens, financial and other, +which may help through discouragement to break down the husband's +morale. + +There should be included here some consideration of one of the most +puzzling types of abandonment--the "pregnancy desertion." Attempts have +been made to explain it on the ground of the instinctive aversion of the +male sex for domestic crises. But the impulse that causes the +prosperous householder to move to his club when house-cleaning time +arrives will hardly serve to explain such a custom, and as a matter of +fact other domestic crises, such as illnesses of the children, do not +have any such effect upon the man who habitually absents himself from +home before the birth of each child. Other possible reasons for it are +the well-known irritability and "difficulty" of women in this condition, +and their aversion to sexual intercourse. Some pregnancy deserters take +the step in the hope that their wives will bring about an abortion; but +this is a modern and sophisticated development and the institution of +"pregnancy desertion" is one of undoubted antiquity. Its prevalence +among certain European immigrants would almost point to its being a +racial tradition. Ethnologists who have studied strange marriage +customs, such as the "couvade," ought to turn their attention to +discovering the causes of this other and socially more important marital +vagary. + +10. Temperamental Incompatibility.--It is difficult to catalogue and +appraise the causal factors in desertion that lie in personality. They +are closely related to differences in background and are intimately +involved with the sex relations of the pair. We cannot, however, admit +that they are identical with the latter, as some students of the subject +claim; or that the only incompatibility in marriage is sex +incompatibility. Indeed, two people may be so incompatible as to find in +sex their only common ground. + +The commonest of these temperamental differences center about +standards of right and wrong or proper and improper conduct. +Especially is this manifested in the bringing up of the children. +Extreme self-righteousness on the part of one or the other, nagging +and petty criticism, unreasonable jealousy, "sulking spells," violent +quarrels, are some of its manifestations. The idea of _possession_ +exercised by either of the couple, and especially a tendency to +dominate or try to control on the part of the woman, may be a causal +factor in desertion. The lack of a saving sense of humor in one or +both is often a complicating factor. These comparatively minor +differences take on a serious complexion in the minds of the couple; +and it is surprising how often a deserting man will give promptly and +with every appearance of feeling justified some cause for his +desertion which falls clearly under this head. "People forgive each +other the big things; it's the little things they can't forgive." + + +11. Sex Incompatibility.--There comes under this heading a wide range +of causative factors which play an important part in marital discord. +Some of them are better understood by the social worker than was +formerly the case; but many of them are obscure even to the practitioner +of mental medicine, to whom their results come daily. Distasteful as the +task may be, the social worker should familiarize herself, through +reading or through instruction by a qualified physician, in the commoner +forms of these maladjustments. This is not urged because it is part of +the social worker's task to make detailed inquiry into such matters or +to pass judgment upon them, but because they often clamor for attention +and need to be recognized by the first responsible person to whose +notice they are brought. Unless she knows, for instance, what +constitutes excess in sex relations, a worker may misunderstand the +situation described to her and condemn a man for being a selfish brute, +when the trouble is really sexual anaesthesia in the wife. It is well +known that this single cause operates disastrously to disrupt many +marriages or else to render them insupportable. The warning should be +added, however--and it cannot be added too emphatically--that the social +worker must scrupulously refrain from making diagnoses in these cases, +even tentatively; she must refer such data as come to her either to the +general practitioner or to the psychiatrist, selecting one or the other +as the symptoms presented may indicate. + +Less well understood by the lay worker are actual maladjustments, both +physical and mental (or spiritual), which prevent the complete +satisfaction of one or both. Some of these are curable by medical care, +others by instruction and education. This instruction should be given, +needless to say, by the physician and not by the case worker. If +uncorrected such maladjustments are apt to result in marital shipwreck. + +No attempt can be made here to discuss actual sex perversions in their +relation to desertion. Their effect is obvious; and the social worker +should be sufficiently well informed, not only from a few standard books +on the subject,[13] but from a knowledge of the phrases which are used +in the tenements, to understand them, so that significant symptoms are +not overlooked. So intimately are sex difficulties connected with the +neuroses that the lay social worker should consult the psychiatrist +freely wherever one is available, before attempting to deal with them. + + +12. Vicious Habits.--Sexual immorality, through its degenerative +effect on personality and the lowered ideals of marriage it induces, has +a real effect in bringing about desertion. The "other man" and the +"other woman" type of desertion, however, is often itself only a +consequence of a previously existing state of temperamental or sexual +incompatibility. If these underlying causes can be attacked and changed +such a desertion may be "repairable." + + A young man deserted his wife and three children and eloped with an + eighteen-year-old girl who had made his acquaintance in a street car + flirtation. He had been "an obedient boy with good principles," and + his later record showed steadiness and ability; but he and his wife + had been drifting apart--their marital relations had not been "quite + the same" as formerly. Arrested and brought back, he did not impute + any blame to her, however, but said he "must have been crazy." In + spite of the circumstances, the judge decided to give him six months + in the penitentiary; and a man visitor from the family social agency + interested began at once to try to secure an influence over him. On + his release the couple again went to housekeeping. The wife had been + cautioned on how to receive him; but things went badly at first, and + the man began again insisting that they were mismated. (He "had the + other girl still considerably on his conscience and heart.") Tangles + continually arose which the society's visitor was hard put to it to + straighten out. Once the wife found a letter from the girl; but + finally, after the charity organization society in the city where he + had left the girl reported that she was doing well and not breaking + her heart about him, the man decided to "cut out" the + correspondence. A little later the girl eliminated herself by + marrying. A year after the reconciliation the wife told the friendly + visitor that the trouble was gone between them, and "it was just + like a new life." For another year efforts were continued to + strengthen the attachment and make the home more attractive, at the + end of which time it was felt that the home was stable enough to + need no further supervision. + +For reasons of convenience we may include here the causal relations +between venereal disease and desertion. In so far as syphilis brings +about mental and physical deterioration, the relation between the two is +obvious. The presence of the disease in the man, if known to his wife, +may lead her to sever relations with him in self-protection, and this +severance, in turn, may lead ultimately to desertion or complete +separation. Often separation is desirable, but the syphilitic who is on +the whole a good family man raises some of the most difficult questions +with which the social worker has to deal. Whether to try to force him +out of the home and thus make an unwilling deserter; whether to violate +the diagnosis given in confidence by passing it on to the wife for her +protection--these are only two of the puzzles that may arise. + +The relation of alcoholism to non-support and desertion is too well +known to require discussion. The causative relation between alcohol and +desertion is so direct that it probably ought not to be included under +contributory causes at all. As it is an active poison to the cells of +the nervous system, it may bring about deteriorations of mind and +character that are directly to blame for such anti-social acts as +desertion. The same is true in less degree of the use of narcotics; +though drug habits are far less common in connection with desertion than +alcoholism. What relation drugs and alcohol will hold to desertion after +July 1, 1919, remains to be seen. Alcoholism in the woman is, however, a +real contributory factor, and one frequently met with. The experience of +social workers leads them to believe that alcohol is more devastating in +its effects on character with women than with men, and that there is +less hope of a cure. The great majority of so-called "justifiable +deserters" are the husbands of alcoholic women. + +Gambling in its effect on family income will be discussed in connection +with non-support, to which it bears a much more direct relation than to +desertion. In its degenerative effect upon character it may have, +however, a real causal relation to the latter. + +The habit of desertion itself is a degenerative one, not only upon the +deserter but upon his home. The "intermittent husband" often weakens and +demoralizes his wife in almost the same ratio as his own progress +down-hill. + + +CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE COMMUNITY + +1. Interference of Relatives.--The tendency of relatives to take sides +against their "in-laws" is a matter of everyone's observation. It is +frequently found as a serious factor in desertion. Many case stories +which will be used in the following chapters to illustrate other points +show also the harmful interference of relatives in what might otherwise +have been a fairly stable home. Relatives can be a factor in marital +discord without actively interfering. One high-tempered young couple +formed what amounted to a habit of frequent quarrels and temporary +separations simply because the parents of both stood ready to take them +back whenever they chose to live apart. Relatives within the home as +well as outside it may exercise an unfortunate influence on marital +relations. The desertion of a middle-aged man who married a widow was +found to be directly caused by the antagonism which grew up between him +and his grown step-children. + + +2. Racial Attitude toward Marriage.--The racial factor is important in +desertion. Not only the individual's own background, but the attitude of +the people whence he sprang toward the sanctity of marriage, toward the +position of women, and toward the importance of restraint in sexual +relations, will have an effect upon the desertion rate of a given racial +group. A study was recently made of 480 deserters known to the New York +Charity Organization Society in 1916-17 whose nationality was given. The +results in percentage form are given for what they may be worth, +compared with the same percentage in 2,987 families of known +nationalities which were under care for all causes during the same year. + +NATIONALITY OR RACE + + | |Per cent + |Per cent |among 2,987 +Race or place of birth |among 480 |families under + |deserters |care for all + | |causes +--------------------------------------------------- +United States--white | 30.6 | 29.7 +United States--colored | 11.2 | 5.6 +Irish | 9.7 | 14.7 + Other British | 5.0 | 4.7 +German | 6.2 | 6.2 +Italian | 20.2 | 28.0 +Austrian | 5.5 | 4.8 +Russian | 2.8 | 1.0 +Polish | 3.3 | 1.2 +Other | 5.5 | 4.1 +---------------------------------------------------- + | 100.0 | 100.0 + +3. Community Standards.--It cannot be too emphatically stated that any +tendency in the community to belittle or ridicule the estate of +matrimony has a definite cumulative effect on desertion. The "when a +man's married" series in the comic supplements, certain comic films in +the moving picture shows, the form of drama popularly called "bedroom +farce" are examples of these destructive forces. Most of the people who +laugh at them accept them as a humorous formula and are not seriously +affected by them; but their educational effect on young people is bound +to be bad and false to the last degree. In so far as they overemphasize +romantic love and disparage conjugal love, the theater and the popular +press do this generation great disservice. + +Another way in which the community may affect the popular conception of +marriage is in the administration of civil marriage. Lack of care in +enforcing the laws and lack of gravity in performing the ceremonies may +have a decided reaction on respect for those laws and for the +institution itself. Similarly, the administration of divorce laws may +affect the popular conception of marriage. One entire neighborhood +condoned the situation in which a deserted wife immediately went to live +with another man, on the ground that "if they had been rich, they could +have got a divorce." + +4. Lack of Proper Recreation.--This may seem a subject to be +discussed under personal factors; but proper recreation, after all, +depends in large measure upon what the community provides or makes +available. The American tendency for the man to get his recreation apart +from his family, in saloons and social clubs, is responsible for many +family maladjustments. Any change in family habits of recreation which +means that the man and wife enjoy fewer things together is a danger +signal the seriousness of which is not always appreciated. Social +workers are inclined to undervalue not only the influence of faulty +recreation as a factor in family breakdown, but also the possibilities +of good recreation as an aid in family reconstruction. + + +5. Influence of Companions.--As a factor in desertion this is closely +connected with the two just discussed. Neighborhood standards, as they +affect individuals, are apt to be transmitted through the small group +that stands nearest, and a man's companions have the freest opportunity +to influence him during their common periods of recreation. The +influence of companions is not often met as a force deliberately exerted +to bring about desertion; but, on the other hand, a man's own mental +contrast between his condition and that of his unmarried companions +often plays a definite part in his decision to desert, if he has begun +to yearn for freedom. The influence of companions is particularly +connected with the "wanderlust" type of desertion. + + +6. Expectation of Charitable Relief.--It used to be held that many men +who would otherwise remain at home and support, might be encouraged to +desert if they had reason to believe that their wives and families would +be cared for in their absence. This was no doubt often the case before +social workers had learned to discriminate in treatment between deserted +wives and widows, or to press with vigor the search for deserting men. +At present, it is the experience of social workers that few men +deliberately reckon upon transferring the burden of their family's +support to others, or are induced by these considerations to leave.[14] + + * * * * * + +In trying to determine the cause for any given desertion it is well to +keep in mind from the beginning that there is probably more than one, +and that the obvious causes that first appear are almost certain +themselves to be the effects of more deeply underlying causes. A young +vaudeville actor of Italian parentage married a Jewish girl, a cabaret +singer, and took her home to live with his parents. Was his subsequent +desertion to be ascribed to difference in nationality and religion, to +interference of relatives, to irregular and unsettling occupation, or to +a combination of all three? Would all marriages so handicapped turn out +as badly? If not, what further factors entered to lower the threshold of +resistance to disintegration in this particular case? + +This last question is after all the most important one of the foregoing +series. It is one which the social case worker must never be content to +leave unanswered. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] All names of deserters given throughout the text are pseudonyms. + +[7] For an excellent discussion of the process of rationalization see +The Psychology of Insanity, Bernard Hart, Cambridge University Press, +1914. + +[8] For a thoughtful discussion of this point see Eubank, E.E.: A Study +of Family Desertion. Chicago Department of Public Welfare, 1916. + +[9] Brandt, Lilian: Family Desertion. The Charity Organization Society +of New York City, 1905. + +[10] For a fuller discussion of forced marriages, see p. 92 sq. + +[11] See also p. 98. + +[12] See also p. 154. + +[13] Two books may be suggested: Forel on The Sexual Question and +Havelock Ellis on Sex in Relation to Society (Vol. VI of Studies in the +Psychology of Sex). + +[14] See p. 70 sq. for a discussion of collusive desertion. + + + + +III + +CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT + + +Unconsciously and imperceptibly, the point of view about the treatment +of desertion has been changing during the past fifteen years. The case +worker's attention used to be focussed on the danger of increasing the +desertion rate by a policy of too sympathetic care for deserters' +families. Little study was made of individual causes, and in so far as +there was a general policy of treatment it was to insist, wherever a +desertion law existed, that the deserted wife go at once to court and +institute proceedings against her husband. He was often not seen by the +social worker until he appeared in court. The policy toward the family +meantime was to reduce its size by commitment of the children until +their mother could support herself unaided; or, if relief was given, to +give smaller amounts than to a widow or the wife of a man in hospital. +As soon as the man had been placed under court order or had returned +home, old records generally show that the social worker's efforts were +relaxed, and often the final entry is, "Case closed--family +self-supporting." + +There were excellent reasons underlying much of the practice. Few laws +were at that time in existence or at all adequately enforced, and any +man who desired was at liberty, so far as the community was concerned, +to walk off and leave his family at any time. The multiplicity of +sources of relief in the large communities and the absence of anything +resembling investigation constituted almost an invitation to men to +desert. It did not occur to the charitable public to draw any line +between the widow and the deserted wife, or indeed to inquire which of +these two a woman was, so long as she was a good mother and "seemed +worthy." No wonder that the pioneering social agencies, busy forging +tools out of the very ore, took a rigid stand on such a question of +social policy as this. Although their deterrents failed to eradicate the +evil of desertion or indeed to touch its sources, there is little doubt +that they did lessen its volume by creating a wholesome respect for the +power of the law in the mind of the would-be deserter and by fostering +in his wife a disposition to stand up for her rights. The more lenient +and more constructive policies now in force have been made possible in +part by these changes of attitude. The very fact that the collusive +desertion, once fairly common, is now seldom met with, illustrates the +salutary effects of the earlier methods of treatment. + +But the fact remains that no marked change has been seen in the +desertion rate, that successive desertions have not been prevented in +individual cases. Hardly any statistical figure in the work of family +social agencies shows so little fluctuation from year to year and +between different cities, as the percentage of deserted families. It +generally forms from ten to fifteen per cent of the work of any such +society. + +Gradually, therefore, the repressive features of the earlier treatment +have been abandoned, and there has come about a realization of the +complexity of causes that bring about family breakdowns. In particular, +the relation of sex maladjustments to failure in marriage have received +the serious attention of the social worker. On the question of court +intervention there has been almost a right-about face; the best social +practitioners now say, unhesitatingly and unequivocally, that they take +cases into court only as a matter of last resort, after case work +methods have been tried and have failed. In no other case where court +action is undertaken by one individual against another does the relation +between them remain unchanged. One could not conceive of a business +partnership failing to be annulled by one partner who brought suit +against another; yet we expect the marriage relation to survive this. As +a matter of fact, such is its vitality that it often does. But many +times the result of court action is only to deaden once and for all the +tiny spark from which marital happiness might have been rekindled. As +long as it survives, both man and wife feel in their inmost hearts that, +no matter what his offense, to "take him to court" is treason against +the intangible bonds that still hold between them. No matter how far +apart they have drifted, or how unforgivable has been the deserter's +offense, something irrevocable does happen to the fabric of marriage, a +few poor shreds of which may still exist between the two, when his wife +appears in a court of law to make complaint against him. It is an +instinctive realization that she is abandoning hope which underlies many +a woman's reluctance to "take a stand against her husband." Many social +workers (including some probation officers and court workers) now feel +that such a stand should be urged only in the full conviction that the +protection of the woman and children demands it, and that there is +nothing else to be done. + +This must not, however, be interpreted as a criticism of the laws +concerning desertion or of the courts which administer them. If they +were not there in the background, ready to be taken advantage of when +all else fails, the social worker's hands would be tied, and the +possibility of a rich and flexible treatment of desertion problems would +be lost to her. It is precisely because they had no such recourse that +the case workers of an earlier day had to adopt a policy which now +seems rigid. It is because they were instrumental in securing better +laws and specialized courts that the latter day social worker can push +forward her own technique of dealing with homes that are disintegrating. + +Another great change in emphasis has been upon the question of +interviewing the man, and of being sure that his side, or what he thinks +is his side, has been thoroughly understood. Social workers are under +conviction of sin in the matter of dealing too exclusively with the +woman of the family; in desertion cases it is more than desirable, it is +vitally necessary to have dealings with the man. Many social workers +feel that, at all events with a first desertion, they would rather take +the risk of having the man vanish a second time after having been found, +than have him arrested before an attempt to talk the matter out with +him. More stringent measures, they believe, can be resorted to +later--but the man must first be convinced that he will be listened to +patiently and with the intent to deal fairly. The case worker knows that +the power of the human mind to "rationalize" anti-social conduct is +infinite; and that, besides the few "justifiable deserters," there are +many who have succeeded in convincing themselves that their action is +warrantable. A deserter who could allege nothing else against his wife, +averred that he had placed under the bed two matches, crossed, and a +week later found them in the same position, proving his contention that +she was slovenly and did not keep the rooms clean. + +The man who, aided by a sore conscience, has worked himself into such a +state of mind as this must be permitted to talk himself out before he +can be made to see the true state of affairs. In the minds of both man +and woman there is likely to be found a superstructure of suspicion, +jealousy, misinterpretation and distrust, built upon the basic fact of +their incompatibility, which has to be pulled down before the true +causes can be probed. To arrest a man in this state of mind is in his +eyes simply to "take sides" against him. Eventually he may have to be +arrested, but, in the case worker's experience, the chances of success +are ten to one if the man can be induced to take some voluntary step +toward reconciliation without the intervention of the law. In many +instances a real interview with the man, while not exonerating him, +would have thrown new light on the woman's statements. + + A family social work society writes: A young woman with her mother + and little boy were referred for aid by a medical social department + because her husband had deserted and she was unable to work. The + doctors feared that her breakdown would result in insanity, so they + asked that her wishes be respected in not seeing the man's family. + She recovered, but it was later found that her husband, while not + doing all that he might for her, had been living at home a good deal + of the time and did not know that his family was in receipt of aid. + + Some years ago a charity organization society, which maintained a + special bureau for treatment of desertion cases, was asked by a Mrs. + Clara Williams to help her find her husband, John, who had left her + some years previously and was living with another woman, so that she + might force him to contribute to the support of herself and her two + children. Mrs. Williams was a motherly appearing person who kept a + clean, neat home, and seemed to take excellent care of her children. + She was voluble concerning her husband's misdeeds and very bitter + toward him, which seemed only natural. The fact of the other + household was corroborated from other sources, and Mr. Williams' + work references indicated that he had been quarrelsome and difficult + for his employers to get along with, although a competent workman. + The problem seemed to the desertion agent a perfectly clear and + uncomplicated one and he proceeded to handle it according to the + formula. Some very clever detective work followed, in the course of + which the man was traced from one suburban city to another, and his + present place of employment found in the city where his wife lived, + although he lived just across the border of another state. The + warrant was served upon the man as he stepped from the train on his + way to work, and he appeared in the domestic relations court. He did + not deny the desertion but made some attempt to bring counter + charges against his wife. When questioned about his present mode of + living he became silent and refused to testify further. He was + placed under bond, which was furnished by the relatives of the woman + with whom he was living, to pay his wife $6.00 a week. No probation + was thought necessary and the case was closed, both the court and + the charity organization society crediting themselves with a case + successfully handled and terminated. + + About a year later Mrs. Williams again applied, stating that her + husband's bond had lapsed, his payment had ceased, and that she had + no knowledge of his whereabouts. Although her home and children were + still immaculate she failed to satisfy the social worker who this + time visited her home with the plausible story which she had told + before. The children's health was not good and they seemed + unnaturally repressed and unhappy. Ugly reports that Mrs. Williams + drank came to the society. The school teacher deplored the effect + which the morbid nature of Mrs. Williams was having on her youngest + child--a daughter just entering adolescence. The son, a boy a little + older, was listless and unsatisfactory at his work, and defiant and + secretive toward any attempt to get to know him better. He spent + many nights away from home and was evidently not on good terms with + his mother. As soon as Mrs. Williams saw that real information was + desired she began indulging in fits of rage in which she displayed + such an exaggerated ego as to cause some doubts as to her mentality. + Baffled at every turn the case worker decided to interview the man, + if possible, to see if through him any clue to the situation might + be gained. The first step was to gain the confidence of a former + fellow-workman and friend of his who now maintained his own small + shop. This was done after several visits, the deserting husband + consenting to an evening meeting in his friend's shop. + + A most illuminating interview followed. Mr. Williams was found to be + an intelligent though melancholy and self-centered man. The couple + had married somewhat late in life, it being Mrs. Williams' second + marriage. She had been strongly influenced by her mother to marry + him and had never had any real affection for him. It became very + evident from his story that the strongly developed egotism of both + the husband and wife had made a real marriage impossible between + them, and the visitor became convinced of the genuineness of Mr. + Williams' protestations that he endured the constant abuse and + ill-treatment of his wife as long as it had been possible to do so. + As her drinking habits took more hold upon her and he had realized + that the break was coming he had endeavored to place the children in + homes, and had once had his wife taken into court. There her + plausible story and good appearance resulted in the case being + dismissed with a reprimand to the husband. He then left home, but + continued to send her money at intervals, although as he got older + he was able to earn less at his trade. Socialism was his religion, + and it was his preaching of this doctrine in season and out to his + fellow workmen which had earned him the ill-will of his employers. + He defended his present mode of living, vigorously putting up a + strong argument that it was a real marriage, whereas the other had + only been a sham. He spoke in terms of affection of the woman who + was giving him the only real home he had ever known, and only wished + that the state of public opinion would permit his taking his young + daughter into his home. The boy, he realized, had grown entirely + away from him and they could never mean anything to each other. It + was his habit to make frequent trips back to the region where his + family lived in order that he might stand on the corner and watch + his children go by. He gave readily much information about his own + and his wife's past connections, including the addresses of many of + her relatives whose existence she had denied, and he successfully + proved that her claims as to his lapsed payments were false by + producing the entire series of post office receipts covering his + remittances to her and extending down to the very week of the + interview.[15] + +There have been striking changes not only in the treatment of the +deserter but in that of his family. Writing in 1910, Miss Breed[16] +deprecates the habit of fostering the deserter's "easy-going conviction +that his family will get along somehow without him" by giving relief. +She approves offering full support in an institution, but is reluctant +to recommend any form of aid in the home, even from relatives. It is +better, she feels, to give entire support to some of the children in +foster homes, leaving the mother only those she can care for. + +Much can be said for even so stringent a policy as this. An unstable +home, with a worthless father an intermittent member of the household, +is as bad an environment as children can have--its very fluctuations +making for nervous instability and a wrong point of view later on. +There is a possibility that other would-be deserters may be deterred by +temporarily breaking up the home, and that an occasional absconding +father may be brought back. But the fact remains that social workers +have, in practice, departed far from this point of view. Out of more +than twenty-five case workers of experience who were interviewed or +written to in preparation for this book, only one believed there had not +been a decided change toward a policy of more liberal relief. + + One district secretary told of a woman who had more than once taken + back a disreputable husband whom she always professed to dislike. + Aid was given sparingly and intermittently during his absences; but + finally the woman in a burst of frankness told the secretary that + she had never felt confident the society would stand behind her. + Each time the man came back with money in his hand, she cheated + herself into believing that he meant "a new leaf." A budget was + worked out with her, and a promise given of an adequate income as + long as she kept her husband away. She has faithfully kept her side + of the bargain for over three years. + +The extension in many states of "state aid to mothers" to cover +deserted wives is an indication of this changed view. In most states, +however, some safeguards are set up; the wife must take out a warrant, +and a given number of years must elapse during which the man shall not +have been heard from, before state aid can be granted to the wife. + +Finally, it is more clearly recognized than formerly that the time to +"close the case" is not just after the man's return. + + A case supervisor speaks of "the strong temptation to close our + records as soon as relief becomes unnecessary. The man's return to + the family is often the critical point at which there is need of + skilful and sympathetic friendship. These cases cry out for + continued treatment. We need to think more humanely about all the + unsettling elements in our urban civilization and to see that all + the nice individual adjustments that as case workers we can make are + made. If the man's work gives him no opportunity for + self-expression, what attempt are we making to give him such + opportunities outside his work, to connect him with a trade union, + with clubs and with fraternities? How much are we thinking about + cures for inebriates, psychoanalysis, vocational guidance, + recreation?" + +Briefly, then, changes in the social worker's attitude toward treatment +have meant less emphasis on punitive and repressive measures, more +consideration of the man's point of view, less tendency to press court +action, at least in the beginning, fewer commitments of children, a more +liberal relief policy (partly as a preventive of "forced +reconciliations"), and lastly, longer supervision after the man has +resumed support of his family. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] Adapted from the writer's article on "Desertion and Non-Support in +Family Case Work," _The Annals of the Academy of Political and Social +Science_, May, 1918, p. 98. + +[16] Breed, Mary: Eleventh New York State Conference, 1910, p. 76. + + + + +IV + +FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND + + +A few years ago a young Jewish woman reported to the National Desertion +Bureau[17] that her husband had left her and their children. + + The couple had never got on well, and the man seemed to have been a + melancholy and impractical fellow. The usual methods of the Bureau + brought no results in finding the missing husband. Then the wife was + more carefully questioned, and urged to tell all that she could + recall or had heard about her husband's early life, his tastes and + peculiarities. Among other things the Bureau learned that the man's + father had died in America years ago, having come here to make a + home for the family left behind in Russia. The boy had grown up in + ignorance of the place of his father's death and burial, and, as the + eldest son, he felt it his duty to find his father's grave. Filled + with this idea he came to America as soon as he was grown and + landed in New York, but his few poor clues availed him little + against the difficulties of poverty and a new and complex + environment. In the end he gave up the search, married, and settled + down on the east side. After the sudden quarrel which led to his + leaving home, his wife thought it possible that his old obsession + might have reawakened. The Bureau, supplied with the clues in + question, had little difficulty in discovering the father's burial + place in St. Louis; and the cemetery authorities promised to send + word if the missing husband should appear. Sure enough, a short time + afterward he arrived, and, after visiting the grave, returned, not + unwillingly, and took up his family duties again under the + supervision of a probation officer. + +The flexibility of method and the readiness to see and utilize new +resources which are displayed in the foregoing account are great assets +to the one who must institute search for a missing husband and father. + +The thing that sets desertion cases apart in a class of peculiar +technical difficulty for the case worker is not simply that the man is +away from his family. There is no man to deal with in a widow's family, +but widows' families present comparatively simple problems. The +deserter, though absent, is still not only a potential but also a real +factor in the family situation. The plans of the family are often made +with one eye to his return; he is the unseen but plainly felt obstacle +to much that the social worker wants to accomplish. The children look +forward to his reappearance with dread or with joy (for many deserters +have a way with them, decidedly, and are welcome visitors to their +children). In short, he is usually at the key point in the situation. No +plan can safely be made that leaves him out, but--there's the rub!--you +cannot include him at once for he is not to be reached, certainly not at +the outset. The discovery of the deserter's whereabouts is not only the +first but the most urgent of the problems that confront the worker who +tries to deal with a deserted family. Unless he can be found the whole +plan rests upon shifting sand. + +A prompt and vigorous effort to find the absentee is therefore a first +requisite in dealing with family desertion. Unfortunately, many case +workers, having started bravely and exhausted the first crop of clues, +become discouraged and fall back on the supposition that the man is +permanently out of the scene, and that it only remains to make plans for +the family. Numberless case histories attest the unwisdom of this +assumption. It is not making an extreme statement to say that, as long +as the family remains under active care or until the missing man is +proved to be dead, the effort to find him should not be abandoned. Mr. +Carstens, in discussing this point, says: + + To carry on this search persistently is the great safeguard. It is + rare when in the course of a few months the true state of affairs + will not have been revealed, though it may have been quite hidden at + the start.[18] + +This is not to say that time must be spent unprofitably in going over +the same ground, or that out-of-town agencies must be badgered to +reinvestigate old clues. But the frame of mind that pigeonholes the +whole matter as having been attended to must be shunned by the social +worker, who should be always on the alert for new clues and prompt to +follow them up. An example of a vigorous and persistent search for a +deserter is taken from the files of the National Desertion Bureau.[19] + + Adolph R. deserted his wife and their six little children on + September 1, 1912. He was traced to Philadelphia, but had left there + the day before the tidings reached New York. Information was + obtained from fellow-employes which led to the belief that he had + gone to Tampa, Florida. Inquiry was directed to the rabbi in that + city, but again the information was disheartening, since it + disclosed the fact that once more R. had "left the day before." The + rabbi telegraphed that the deserter had evidently gone to Lakewood, + Florida, and that he could be found in that place. Immediately the + Bureau dispatched a telegram to its representative there, only to + find that R. had merely passed through Lakewood en route to Bartow, + Florida. When the inquiry reached Bartow it was learned that R. had + left a few days before, and that he was on his way to Memphis, + Tennessee. The Jewish Charities of Memphis made investigation at the + cigar factories of that city, but reported that no person bearing + the name of R. or resembling him had been seen in their city. No + further clue to his whereabouts could be secured. + + Months later R. applied to the Jewish Charities of Louisville for + transportation to New York, making an entirely false statement about + his family. + + This statement was telegraphed to the Bureau and no time was lost in + securing a warrant. Louisville was notified by wire to arrest, but + again a telegram came: "Adolph R. left city. Learned from + Cigarmakers' Union headquarters he went to Cincinnati. Wire Joe + Rapp, 1316 Walnut Street, Cincinnati Union Headquarters. Man said he + was going to Cincinnati or Indianapolis. Man joined union Richmond, + Va., November 19, 1911, and reports to union in all cities." The + Desertion Bureau immediately telegraphed to Cincinnati and + Indianapolis. The United Jewish Charities of Cincinnati working + together with the labor union lost little time in effecting his + arrest. + +Many theories about family desertion have suffered a change in recent +years. One of these relates to the "collusive desertion." Social workers +in training used formerly to be taught that the first place to look for +the deserter was around the corner, where he could slip back into the +house and partake of charitable bounty or, at the very least, keep close +watch of his family and return if any serious danger threatened them. +Although the collusive desertion seems to have been a frequent happening +in the past, there is almost unanimous testimony from case workers at +the present time that it is not common. "I don't come across an instance +once a year," said one case worker. + + Another, after searching her memory, recalled what seemed to her one + instance of real collusion. A woman, pregnant and seeming to be in + great destitution, applied to a family social work society in a + small city for help. Careful search did not discover the man's + whereabouts--he seemed to have disappeared without leaving a trace, + and his wife professed ignorance. Some two weeks after this the + visitor, calling late, met a man on the stairs who proved to be the + missing husband. Times were hard and he was out of a job, so he had + taken to the attic of their house, and had kept so strictly + _incommunicado_ that not only the society but the neighbors had been + deceived. + +Out of twenty or more case workers in different cities whose experience +was sought on this point, nearly all felt that the warnings against +possible collusion which used to be given to young workers no longer +needed to be emphasized. Testimony in the other direction is, however, +advanced by the National Desertion Bureau, which found that about 10 per +cent of the applications made in 1910 to the United Hebrew Charities of +New York for relief because of desertion were collusive. + +It should be said, however, that one form of collusion is common to the +experience of case workers--that of the wife who knows where her +husband is, or has a very good idea, but does not want him to return +and so keeps her knowledge to herself. "In two of our regular allowance +families," writes the case supervisor of a family agency, "we +discovered--one quite incidentally, one after the allowance had been +discontinued for other reasons--that the wife had had reports regarding +the man which we might have followed up had we known of them earlier. It +could hardly be called collusion--it was mere indifference." A probation +officer writes: + + "At the present time we have under investigation a family where the + man has been away from home for two years and his whereabouts during + the last year have been known to his wife. He has been living in a + suburb of the city and working steadily during that time. The woman + has received adequate aid from public and private organizations. She + has been content to accept that rather than notify the authorities + and have her husband required to meet the responsibility. The man on + his part was aware that his family was being supported, and while + there was no agreement between the parties regarding it, + nevertheless the arrangement apparently met with mutual approval." + +To guard against this and similar omissions on the woman's part, more +than one agency which deals with family desertion requires the deserted +wife to sign an affidavit that she has given all the information she +possesses. + +Although in practice the possibility of a collusive desertion is not the +first and most important thing to keep in mind, it is frequent enough +not to be entirely forgotten. And for yet other reasons it is well to +keep a watchful eye upon the neighborhood in which the family is living +for reports about the man. Often obscure impulses seem to bring him +back; jealousy of the wife or a desire to show himself in a spirit of +bravado, or even sometimes a fugitive affection for the children he has +abandoned may cause him to appear in the neighborhood. "The deserter, +like the murderer, harks back to the scene of his misdeeds" was the +generalization of one district secretary. + +Even when he does not appear in the flesh the deserter may seek news of +his family. "One deserter was found through the Attendance Department +[of the public school system] to which he wrote after a three years' +absence asking the address of one of the children of whom he was +especially fond." + +There is little in the literature of the subject covering methods of +discovering deserters, nor do case workers generally appear to have +developed a special technique. The decided reaction against detective +methods which has been apparent in the profession during later years may +help to explain this fact. Most social workers feel a subconscious sense +of injustice in having to do this work at all, since it is properly a +function of the police. Prosecutors and police officials generally take +very little interest in following up deserters, and have little idea of +giving any treatment to the deserter who has been found other than +arraignment and conviction. It is difficult for the probation officer or +the family case worker to hold up the machinery of the law, once it has +been started, and to do this long enough to find out whether some other +form of treatment best suits the case. For these reasons the social +worker usually prefers to do or else is forced to do the work of the +detective in desertion cases up to the point where arrest is in his +judgment necessary. + + A probation officer in D---- found that he could not work through + the local police in searching for a certain deserter, because the + missing man's political affiliations made them friendly to him. The + probation officer knew in a general way that the man was likely to + be in the city of S---- in the same state, so he secured a warrant + and sent it with such slight clues as were at hand, to a probation + officer of that city who was successful in the search. Avoiding the + usual procedure, the warrant was served by the police in S----. + "Several instances of this kind have occurred lately," writes the + probation officer at D----. + +The necessity of doing the detective's work raises at once the question +of how far the social worker can afford to adopt the detective's +methods. If reformation of the man is the end sought it would seem an +axiom that he must be given from the first every reason to believe that +the social worker will play fair. "We are very careful never to break a +promise we have made to a man," says an agency which deals with many +deserters. The same agency, as illustration of its own methods in +seeking deserting men, instances the case of a man who was being +shielded by his sister, but was discovered by an officer who scraped +acquaintance with her little boy and asked innocently, "Where's your +uncle Jack now?" In another case the officer learned of a man's +whereabouts through his relatives by representing himself as a lawyer's +clerk calling about a legacy which had been left the man. In still +another case, reported by a different agency, a man who had deserted his +family was known to be receiving mail through the general delivery of +another city. It was ascertained that he was writing to a woman in his +home town. A letter was sent to him in care of General Delivery asking +him to meet the writer (who was represented to be the young woman with +whom he was corresponding). The wife was sent to that city and she and +the local probation officer met the man and served the warrant. + +There is, of course, something to be said in favor of the use of such +methods. The protection of the weak and helpless may justify, in certain +circumstances, any subterfuge. But the _detective_ who arrests the +criminal in ways like these is seeking his punishment and nothing else. +There is no thought in that case of establishing personal relations and +effecting the long, slow process of reformation. When social workers use +such methods it should be in the full realization that they are +foregoing any future advantage of straight dealing with the man. To +capture a man by a trick is to declare war on him; and, in his mind, the +social worker and the policeman then stand in the same place, "I'd have +him there to meet you," said a deserter's chum to a woman visitor, "if I +wasn't sure, in spite of your straight talk, you'd have a bull waiting +behind a tree."[20] + +If it is a first desertion, or if there is room for doubt whether an +accident may have befallen the man, police and hospital records should +be looked up. + + A woman with four children applied to a charity organization + society, saying her husband had disappeared. There was a rumor that + someone had seen him fall off the dock while intoxicated, but no + attempt had been made to confirm this and the family was treated as + a deserted family for some months, until the man's body was found in + the river and identified. + +If there have been previous desertions, it is extremely important to +secure their history. The reasons that moved the man once are likely to +do so again, and he is apt to return to his former haunts and be seen by +former friends and acquaintances. + +The deserting man, unless he elopes with another woman, generally goes +to some cheap lodging house or, if of foreign birth, he may seek out the +quarter where those of his nationality reside and become a lodger in a +family in which his native tongue is spoken. Hence, a canvass of the +lodging houses--armed with a photograph if possible--is a desirable +first step. All of the social worker's casual acquaintance with the +foreign quarters of his city comes into play in the search. If the man +is in the city some "landsmann," some "paesano" has seen him, and knows +where he is to be found. It may even narrow down to finding the +particular house on the particular street where the immigrants from a +particular village in Sicily or Galicia have their abode. The pool-rooms +and saloons of the district can often be made to yield information, +especially if a man visitor can canvass them. In dealing in this way +with mere acquaintances of the man, it is usually not necessary for the +social worker to tell who he himself is or to state the purpose of his +inquiry. In talking with relatives or close friends, however, it is +often best to lay all cards on the table and convince one's listener +first of all that the man sought will have fair treatment and a chance +to state his side of the case before any proceedings are begun against +him. + +Even a relative who has never been seen may sometimes be induced to act +effectively. + + A man who deserted his wife and family was reported to have gone to + his brother in another city. Nothing definite was known of the + brother except that he was a telephone lineman. No address could be + secured through the company, but they agreed to forward a letter to + this relative. He never answered; shortly, however, the deserter + reappeared, having been persuaded to return voluntarily by the + brother to whom the letter had been addressed. + +During the war local draft boards were of the greatest assistance in +finding deserting men. Election records too have been of real value in +the case of men who were voters. Passports and immigration records may +in some instances yield information helpful in establishing whereabouts. +Where there is actually a warrant out for the man's arrest, the active +co-operation of the postal authorities can sometimes be secured in +furnishing return addresses on envelopes delivered to persons with whom +the culprit is known to be in correspondence. + +Problems of family desertion involving men in service during the war +were in the main handled by the Red Cross Home Service. Before the war, +private case working agencies had learned that the regular Army and the +Navy often seemed desirable havens to would-be family deserters. The +difficulties of finding them there were great, owing to the fact that +they often enlisted as single men under an assumed name. It has usually +been possible to gain excellent co-operation from the military +authorities if there are any clues whatever. + + The desertion bureau of a family social work society learned that a + deserting man had expressed a desire long before he left his family + to enlist in the Army. Several letters were exchanged with the War + Department, and the man was finally found to be with a company + serving in the Canal Zone. As he had made misrepresentations when he + enlisted, the War Department was willing to transfer him from Panama + to a camp within the limits of the city where the desertion had + taken place and there discharge him. This brought the absconder + within the jurisdiction of the local courts and made it possible to + arrest him as soon as he was outside the bounds of the camp. + +It will repay the visitor to make not only a careful study of the +deserting man's employment history but also to learn something about the +trade he follows. A cloakmaker, for instance, who deserts in New York +City is likely to be found in Cleveland, for these are the two centers +of the cloak branch of the garment trade. Certain seasonal occupations +give the periodical deserter a great opportunity. Among these are hop +picking, berry picking, and lumbering. The amusement parks near the +large cities also furnish occupation for the seasonal deserter. The case +worker cannot be expected to have such knowledge at his finger-tips, but +he can go to people who know about the fluctuations of particular +trades--to employers, union officials or fellow-workmen who may throw +light on a deserter's movements. The story of Adolph R.[21] is an +excellent illustration of the help that may be obtained from trades +unions and from fellow-workmen. A family welfare bureau in a western +city writes: + + "In one instance a blacksmith's union published the picture of the + deserting man in its official journal and asked that information + regarding him be sent to the local unit here. This proved + successful. In another instance a union gave us access to its books + and helped us to trace all the men of a given name listed there. By + this means we found the man we were looking for. One man, a + vaudeville performer, we traced through the _Bill Board_ (a trade + paper) by discovering the movements of the show with which he had + been connected." + +Another society succeeded in getting a certain trade union to post a +description and photograph of a missing man on its bulletin boards. This +aided in finding the man. Fraternal orders may be; used in the same way, +though for many reasons they cannot be so helpful as the trades unions. + +Employment agencies should not be forgotten in seeking to trace a man +through his industrial record. The extension of the federal employment +service, with free inter-city communication, should be of assistance in +getting upon the track of deserters. + +The co-operation of newspapers can be secured to good effect in tracing +missing men. + + Herbert McCann, who had been doing railway construction in Russia, + returned to this country and disappeared while en route from an + eastern city to his home in Canada. There was reason to think that + he might have left the train in an intoxicated condition at an + important junction point; and the family social agency of that city + was asked to trace him. No information was secured from the police, + lodging houses, employment agencies, etc., and finally the following + advertisement was inserted in the local paper: "_Information + Wanted_--Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Herbert McCann, Montreal, + who returned from Russia in June, will confer a favor upon his + family by notifying Social Service Building, 34 Grand Street." Six + days later a reply was received from a man in a nearby town, and + McCann was found at work in a factory there. + +More than upon any other method the National Desertion Bureau depends on +the publication of pictures and short newspaper paragraphs. As this +Bureau deals entirely with Jewish deserters, it works chiefly through +the Yiddish newspapers. Its "Gallery of Missing Husbands" is a regular +weekly feature in some of the better known of these journals, and +attracts increasingly wide attention. The Bureau estimates that 70 per +cent of the deserters which it finds are discovered through the +publication of pictures. It should be remembered, however, that this +Bureau is dealing with a selected group, who know a great deal about one +another, live closely together, follow in the main only a few trades, +and read only a limited number of foreign-language newspapers. Whether +anything like the same results could be obtained by the same methods +applied to deserting husbands of many different national and social +backgrounds is open to question. + +Since most deserters leave the city, if not the state, the social worker +who is dealing with the family problem is often not the same person to +whom is delegated the task of finding the man. This fact makes necessary +the most careful and sympathetic co-operation between the social workers +or agencies, which must work together at long range upon the problem. In +the case of Herbert McCann, just cited, not less than four family social +work societies were concerned--three in the United States and one in +Canada. This necessitated keeping in the closest touch, by letter and +telegram, so that each was informed of the doings of the others. Such a +piece of work calls for a common body of experience and technique among +the workers concerned, amounting almost to an unwritten understanding +as to how the work should be done. Nothing makes more fascinating +reading than the record of a quick, touch-and-go investigation, such as +is presented in the finding of a deserter conducted by skilled case +workers who are accustomed to work together. Much can, under these +circumstances, be taken for granted or left to the discretion of the +worker or agency whose help is being sought. There are instances, +however, where no such common understanding exists, and where the +home-town agency has to work through people with little social training +or with training of a type which definitely unfits them properly to +approach the deserting man. It is a distressing experience to know that +a man has slipped through one's fingers, been frightened off or +alienated, by poor work at the other end. Are there any ways to reduce +the number of these mischances? + +Even with the closest co-operation among case workers of ability in +different cities the results are not always as favorable, for obvious +reasons, as if the person who knows the family were the one to find and +interview the man. More and more it is realized that money and time +spent in going to nearby cities to do one's own investigating is well +spent. There used to be a feeling on the part of the kindred society +whose territory was thus invaded that this action argued lack of +confidence in its work; but as the importance of the personal contact +has been more widely recognized this feeling has disappeared. It may be +said that a worker who goes to a strange city is handicapped by her lack +of knowledge of local conditions. This is of course true, and it may +easily be a question of how great an advantage will be gained by the +journey. The worker from the man's home town can, however, go far toward +overcoming the handicap of unfamiliarity with the place, as well as +toward dispelling any sense of injury in the mind of a professional +colleague, by calling first at the office of the local agency and +talking the problem over thoroughly, consulting the map and getting what +hints the local agency may be able to furnish. The first question to ask +oneself, therefore, is "Will it not be worth while to go myself?" + +If for geographical or other reasons this is impracticable, the next +thing that should receive careful consideration is the type of letter to +be written. If the situation is very emergent (as in the case of Adolph +R. cited earlier), the request may have to be sent by telegraph; but +even in a telegram it is possible to convey some detail. To try to save +money by confining oneself to ten words is unwise. If time admits, a +letter is more desirable, and the principle of its construction is as +simple as the Golden Rule--give the other person all the information you +would like to have if you were receiving the letter. Where the +correspondent is not a trained social worker, very specific suggestions +and directions should be given as to how you wish the man dealt with if +found. + +There might also be laid down a Golden Rule for recipients of requests +from out-of-town that missing men be traced. "Give the request +right-of-way over your regular work, and send back as prompt and as full +a reply as you would wish yourself" might adequately cover the case. A +reply which contains a history of actual steps taken as well as results +gained, is more satisfactory than one which does not. Good case workers +believe in reciprocity and treat their neighbor's problem as their own. +"We heard that a man we were interested in was in the vicinity of a +certain city, and in the effort to trace him wrote to the charity +organization society in that place, but without success. Several months +later the charity organization society saw an item in a newspaper to the +effect that the man had been interned as an enemy alien, and notified +us. (This shows no cleverness on our part, but good work by the other +society.)" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] The National Desertion Bureau, 356 Second Avenue, New York, acts in +a legal advisory capacity to Jewish organizations in matters of domestic +relations; it also seeks out Jewish family deserters, with a view to +assuring their rehabilitation or, failing this, their punishment. + +[18] C.C. Carstens, Proceedings of the Fifth New York State Conference +of Charities and Correction, 1904, p. 196. + +[19] See p. 65, footnote. + +[20] This paragraph was submitted to the two agencies which furnished +the illustrations. Their replies are in part as follows: + +_Agency A._--"Your criticism ... is purely theoretical and has no basis +in fact. The deserter is a knowing violator of the law, and while he +does not welcome it, he regards his arrest as only a question of time. +He is playing the game of 'hide and seek,' and he is applying every +trick and subterfuge to avoid detection. He is not disturbed if he has +been caught in a police trap. Our experience has been that in such cases +where he has tried to outwit the police, and the police finally have +'beaten him to the game,' he compliments his captor. This is a common +characteristic of the criminal, a sort of negative bravado, When the +deserter is arrested, all he can hope for and expect is a fair deal." + +What are some concrete suggestions, developed from the experience of +case workers, as to how to proceed in searching for deserting men? A +full and careful talk with the wife is the first requisite, supplemented +by equally thorough interviews with any near relatives who can be +reached. The case worker should be familiar with the Questionnaire on +the Deserted Family in Mary E. Richmond's Social Diagnosis. A +description and if possible a photograph of the man should be procured. +Where several out-of-town clues are to be followed, copies of the +photograph can be cheaply made, and at least one bureau for dealing with +desertion cases makes this part of its routine procedure. + +_Agency B._--"I have seen very few individuals in the course of my +experience who could not be brought to see the right viewpoint if they +were intelligently approached, even though the probation officer had +considerable to do with their arrest. It is in my opinion not altogether +important what occurs before the man's arrest but how he is treated +after he comes within the jurisdiction of the probation officials." + +[21] See p. 69. + + + + +V + +FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION + + +It is evident that the need of finding the man strongly influences the +course of this type of investigation, especially in the early stages. +Are there other considerations, however, that modify the technique of +inquiry into these desertion cases? + +There is one crisis in the lives of deserted families which is not +duplicated in the history of any other group suffering from social +disability. This crisis is the period of the first desertion. "If we +could learn what preceded and what immediately followed the first +desertion, we should know much more than we do now about how to deal +with the problem," said a case worker who has studied many court +records. + +The _number_ of subsequent desertions may be both interesting and +significant, but the circumstances attending them are not nearly so well +worth study as are those connected with the critical first break. We +should go back to that spot and probe for causes. The common practice of +recording carefully what led up to a chronic deserter's last desertion +before his family applied, and of passing over his earlier desertions +with a mere mention of their number and dates, puts the emphasis in the +wrong place. + +We must, however, go further back than the first desertion for a working +fund of knowledge. The importance of knowing what were the influences +surrounding the man and woman in childhood and youth has already been +dwelt upon and is so generally conceded as to need no elaboration here. +Of especial value also is careful inquiry into the period of courtship, +the circumstances of the marriage, and the history of the earlier +married life. "We should seek to know what first drew them together, as +well as what forced them apart," said a thoughtful district secretary. +The notorious unhappiness of "forced marriages" leads case workers to +scrutinize the relation between the date of marriage and the date of +the birth of the first child. It should be remembered, however, that not +all marriages which are entered into during pregnancy are forced +marriages. Studies of forced marriages, so-called, have not always taken +this fact into consideration. + +The superintendent of a state department for aid to widows made a study +of the vital statistics of 500 families chosen at random. She states +that "out of these 500 mothers 96, or 19.2 per cent, had conceived out +of wedlock--or rather before wedlock--judging by the date of marriage +and that of the first child's birth. All these women were hard working; +several of good standing in the neighborhood and the mothers of large +families of children." This group of homes represents by no means an +unstable segment of the community, since in most instances the couples +had lived together in reasonable harmony up to the time of the man's +death. But do the 96 represent forced marriages as ordinarily thought of +by the social worker? The study just quoted has no facts bearing upon +this point. The likelihood is that a large number of these marriages, +termed forced, were in reality not brought about by outside pressure at +all, but that the couple were intending to be married at the time the +pregnancy occurred and that the circumstances were condoned by public +opinion in the community where the marriage took place. + +The Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, however, has made a study +of 89 forced marriages which were brought about in connection with +bastardy proceedings. In this study there is no attempt to differentiate +as to the _amount_ of unwillingness that had had to be overcome on the +part of either the man or the woman. Fifty-three of the women said that +the marriage had been entered into willingly on their part. Sixty of +them stated that they were well treated by their husbands, and only five +complained of abuse or unkindness. Out of the 89 marriages brought about +after proceedings were instituted 69 of the couples were still living +together from one to two years later, although 20, or nearly one in +five, had separated before the two-year period was over.[22] + + A young woman with four small children was given advice by an + associated charities about her approaching confinement, and no + further inquiry was made at that time. She was living apart from her + husband, who was contributing a small amount regularly. The income + was inadequate and it was decided to push the matter further. + Efforts to verify the marriage failed. Finally, a tactful worker was + able to learn that the ceremony had not taken place until after the + birth of the first three children, that the couple had had sexual + relations since the woman was a girl of fifteen, and that her + relatives had never known the true state of affairs. The man's + mother finally interfered, and urged her son not to live with his + wife. After much careful work, and with the assistance of a + co-operating priest, a plan was worked out which brought the couple + together and induced them to move away from the region in which the + man's parents lived. + + * * * * * + + A probation department tells of a case where, although the man was + unwilling to marry, a court marriage was brought about; the man made + his payments promptly and observed the other conditions of his + probation faithfully. The woman, however, was indifferent to any + efforts to bring about a reconciliation. It was finally discovered + that she was immoral. The case culminated in the securing of a + divorce by the man, who was granted the custody of the children. + + The same department submits a story where good results were obtained + in subsequently reconciling, after a desertion, a couple whose + marriage had been of the forced description. The probation + department arranged for the couple to live apart in the early stage + of probationary treatment. A careful study was made of each of the + individuals, and in their sincere attachment a basis was discovered + for re-establishment of the home under the supervision of the + probation officer. Five years later the man was found to be at work + at the same position originally obtained for him by the probation + officer, his salary had been increased, the family had grown in + number and were getting on extremely well. + +Although the term "forced marriage" has come to have the meaning given +above, unions can be really forced where there has been no sex relation +before marriage. In one unhappy marriage which came finally to a court +of domestic relations, the wife was a weak and timid woman who married +her husband because of her fear that he would carry out his threat and +kill her and himself if she refused him. Another, an Italian girl, was +married at fourteen by her parents against her inclinations to a +well-to-do man, much older than she, who was a lodger in the family. As +she grew to womanhood their incompatibility increased; finally, after +four children had been born, the family was broken up and the children +committed to institutions. + +There are compulsions and false motives, operating to bring about +marriages, which spring from within not without; and the discovery of +any motive for the marriage except mutual inclination has significance +to the case worker. Light was thrown on the troubles of one young couple +when the girl confessed that she had married a youth for whom she had no +particular affection, in order to "spite" her relatives and assert her +right to do as she chose. And the unfortunate young woman who married a +street evangelist in a fit of religious enthusiasm, and because of his +promise that they would travel about the world saving souls together, +had a married life both short and stormy. The so-called "slacker +marriages" of the few months preceding the first draft in 1917 +illustrate this point. The wreckage of these marriages is already +drifting in increasing amount to the courts of domestic relations. + +One of the most important items in desertion cases, and one far too +often neglected, is the verification of the marriage. Much seeming +indifference and confusion on this point is probably caused by the +quasi-legality in many states of common law marriages. The case worker +should not forget, however, that a common law union is often only a +device on the part of one or the other of the two to avoid prosecution +for bigamy. When it is established that the marriage is a common law +union, a strong suspicion should be set up in the worker's mind that +there may be some legal barrier to a ceremony, and careful inquiry +should be directed along this line. Not only does the verification of a +marriage give the worker a sound basis on which to proceed to court +action if necessary, but the copy of the actual marriage record, where +that can be procured, gives much valuable information as to dates, +addresses, and names of relatives and witnesses. A transcript of the +record will usually be furnished by the registrar of vital statistics +in the city where the marriage took place (if in the United States) for +a nominal fee of fifty cents. + +It is much more difficult to verify marriages which took place in other +countries, and social workers are often appalled by the prevalence of +the so-called "American marriage" among immigrant deserters, who trust +to our happy-go-lucky methods for protection against a prosecution for +bigamy. + + Such was the case of Orfeo Pelligrini, who came to this country and + took a new wife when his children in Italy were nearly grown. His + Italian family came to America through their own efforts a few years + later, and Orfeo found that he had underestimated the character of + his eldest son, who traced his father, had him arrested and taken to + the city where his original family was living. Orfeo, now forcibly + reunited to the wife of his bosom, walks softly under the threat of + bigamy proceedings, while the "American" wife refuses to take any + action on the ground that "he didn't go away from me of his own + wish, and why should I put him behind the bars?" + + * * * * * + + Of an altogether more simple mental make-up was the Slovak laborer + who brought his pregnant "American wife" and two children to the + district office of a charity organization society, saying that the + relatives in Europe of Anna, his first wife, had sent Anna to this + country, and she was on the point of arriving. He added that, as + manifestly it was not possible to support two families on his wages, + he would like to provide for his second wife through "the Charity." + +A district secretary who has worked for many years with Italians is +authority for the statement that marriages in Italy are always +registered at the man's legal residence, no matter where the marriage +took place. "Careful Italian parents, if they cannot get reliable +information in other ways, write to the 'paese' of a suitor for +information in regard to his conjugal condition. A marriage which takes +place in America is customarily registered with the consul for +transmission to the home town in Italy." + +In some countries of Latin America great confusion may be caused by the +fact that a marriage performed in church is not legal in the eyes of the +state unless a second ceremony is gone through before the civil +authorities. A Guatemalan woman, deserted in this country, had no +recourse in law because she had had only the church ceremony in her +country. Her claim to the status of common law wife was invalidated by +the man's producing proof that he was already married at the time the +religious ceremony was performed. + +Having established the fact that a legal marriage has taken place, the +case worker must keep in mind the possibility that it may have been +later dissolved. It is not at all uncommon to find that a deserter who +has gone off with another woman has started proceedings to get a divorce +by "publication." This can happen when the two have gone to a state +where such unfair divorce procedure is permitted. Publication in these +cases takes place in local newspapers which there is little or no chance +of the wife seeing; and she may later find herself a divorced woman with +no legal claim for support for herself or children, and suffering under +charges of misconduct without having had a chance of being heard. The +National Desertion Bureau found this proceeding so common an abuse that +it established a clearing bureau in its central office, and its local +representatives in different parts of the country notify this bureau as +soon as any action for divorce is started by a man with a Jewish name +against a wife whose "address is unknown."[23] + +What are some of the other points at which the investigation of cases of +desertion may differ from the technique generally accepted? The +superintendent of a desertion bureau, in answer to this question, said +that he emphasized "neighborhood references" more than in the ordinary +case. Social workers have become very wary, of course, of much inquiry +among present neighbors; but where the protection of the woman or the +children is involved it is often necessary to procure the testimony of +people who live nearby or in the same house. A deserted family is +usually so much a center of neighborhood interest or sympathy, or both, +that it is easier than in some other types of cases to secure +information from neighbors, tradesmen, and so on, without augmenting +neighborhood gossip. + +Probably the most difficult part of the necessary information to be +secured in desertion cases is an adequate picture of the sex +relationship between man and wife. The part which sex plays in the +causation of desertion has been touched upon in Chapter II.[24] In +getting the information from the people concerned, the case worker needs +no elaborate equipment as a psycho-analyst; but she should know enough +about sex psychology to recognize a pathological problem when she meets +it, and to be able to call on the psycho-analyst or psychiatrist for +specialized service. + +The securing of an adequate picture of the sex life of the couple may +have to be delegated, however, to some volunteer whose own sex, +profession, or marital experience makes him or her a suitable person to +secure it. + + "The majority of social case workers are unmarried women under + forty, and in this particular respect they frequently find + themselves handicapped by the natural reluctance of the deserter to + discuss his conceptions of the marital relation in such a way as to + be enlightening to them, as well as by the chivalrous attitude which + the woman of the tenements often adopts toward her unmarried + visitor. The decisive statement, 'You have never been married, so + you can't understand,' often proves at least a temporary barrier in + dealing with deserted wives, just as the similar statement, 'You + have never been a mother so you cannot know the feelings of one,' is + used to block her efforts in another direction. If it is found + impossible to carry on the necessary discussions rationally and + without too serious embarrassment, it is often possible to call upon + the socially-minded physician or clergyman for help along this + line."[25] + +To sum up, the interviews with the family and the supplementary visits +and letters of inquiry should furnish the social worker if possible +with: + +1. A clear picture of the home in which the two adult members of the +family grew up, and the factors in their early training which +contributed to their failure as husband or wife; or which can be +utilized as assets in the future plan. + +2. A history of how the couple met; the events of their courtship and +marriage, including sex relations prior to marriage with spouse or +others; also previous marriages. Records of marriage, death of previous +spouse, etc., are very important and should be secured if in existence. + +3. A picture of the family and its individual members in their other +social relationships--with employers, medical agencies, teachers, their +church, their friends, their relatives. Knowledge of their habits, +tastes, and characteristics, with special attention to period of first +desertion. Analysis of factors leading to the desertion. + +4. History of first reconciliation (unless the present is the first +break). History of subsequent desertions. Court record, if any. + +A prerequisite to some of the above information is an interview or +interviews with the man. Where this cannot be had as part of the first +investigation, the investigation should leave the worker in possession +of some good clues, at least, to the man's whereabouts. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] Bowen, Louise de K.: A Study of Bastardy Cases. Juvenile Protective +Association of Chicago, 1914. + +[23] It is the policy of the Bureau, when such a case is discovered, to +help the wife get competent legal advice in the city where action is +being brought, and either to contest the case or start a counter suit. +Where necessary the woman is sent on to appear in person. + +[24] See p. 37 sq. + +[25] J.C. Colcord in _The Annals of the American Academy of Political +and Social Science_, May, 1918, p. 97. + + + + +VI + +THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT + + +As in all other problems faced by the case worker, it is impossible to +lay down general rules for the treatment of desertion. There may be +general considerations, however, which it is well to keep in mind, some +of which have been advanced in the last chapter.[26] + +On questions of investigation there is closer agreement among social +workers than on questions of treatment. Personal factors here play a +much larger part, and it may very well be that two case workers who +differ in personality but are of equal ability, will choose very +different plans of treatment in a given case and yet each bring it to a +successful issue. It is with a good deal of hesitancy, therefore, that +a case worker ventures upon the discussion of anything so flexible as +treatment. In preparation for this study many consultations were had +with practising social case workers in the fields of family work, +probation, medical-social service, and child welfare. Differences of +opinion were found and this chapter will attempt to express the +composite opinion on how to treat the deserter and his family in the +different situations which confront them. + + +1. Man's Whereabouts Unknown but Desertion of Recent Date.--It is +better in this case to make no very definite plans for the family. +Emergent plans, both as to relief and medical or other care should, of +course, be prompt and adequate. Now is the time, if it can be done, to +win the confidence and co-operation of the wife. We should, however, +make no promises for the sake of "buying" co-operation, and give no +premature advice either as to prosecution or reconciliation. Everything +possible should be done to strengthen such ties with church, relatives, +and friends as may be helpful, but the social worker should be slow to +encourage the family to form new ties with other social agencies at this +time. She should avoid the possibility of judging the woman harshly in a +period of stress, but be watchful for signs of deterioration and +resourceful to combat them. This is the stage, of course, when all +energies should be bent toward finding the man. + +In this as in the other situations about to be discussed, the question +of whether or not the home should be broken up and the children +committed should be decided on other grounds than on the desertion +alone. Under many circumstances, it is the best thing to do. The woman, +worn out with anxiety or abuse, may be unequal to their physical care +for the present; or they may be running wild and in danger of becoming +delinquent. The mother may be morally an unfit guardian, and the +desertion may furnish the long-sought opportunity to interfere for the +children's protection. Commitment may have to be planned, and the +mother's consent won, to save the children from the return of a brutal +father, against whom she cannot protect them. Or she may desire a +temporary commitment in order to give her husband a severe lesson. The +main consideration, however, ought to be what is going, in the long run, +to be best for the children concerned. + + +2. Man's Whereabouts Unknown, Desertion of Long Standing.--A very +different problem from the preceding may be presented in the family of a +man who disappeared some time ago. Where the desertion is bona fide and +has persisted over a period of years, it is often possible to treat the +family as if the man were dead, and, if other circumstances make this +advisable, to plan comprehensively for the future. There is always the +chance, however, that, until the man's death is established, he may turn +up unexpectedly. If living, he usually manages to hear now and again +about his family and is often able to find them at will. A man who had +neither seen nor communicated with his family during the ten years they +had been maintained by a private family agency, nevertheless sent +promptly for his wife and eldest son by a messenger who knew exactly +where to find them (although they had moved in the interval several +times), when he lay dying of alcoholic excess in the city hospital. + +The laws of many states contain a provision that the marriage of a +person who has completely disappeared and not been heard from in a +period of years can be set aside by the proper authorities. This makes +legal the remarriage of the spouse. In nearly all of the states divorce +can be obtained on the ground of long continued desertion.[27] The +wisdom of advising such a divorce, however, should receive careful +individual consideration, particularly in relation to the religious +faith of the client and the attitude of that faith toward divorce. + +3. Man's Whereabouts Known; Man Unwilling to Return or Support.--Many +types of deserting men are included under this catch-all heading--the +so-called "justifiable deserter;" the man who has fled to escape his +creditors or is a fugitive from justice; the man who has elected to try +life with another mate; the wandering hobo who means to come back some +sweet day but not now; the cowardly pregnancy deserter; the low-grade +irresponsible--a motley crew. They are grouped together here for +convenience, since they constitute those with whom coercive measures +have most often to be used. + + A good example of the "justifiable deserter" is found in the story + of Williams.[28] This man, when home conditions became intolerable, + tried to secure his children's safety through the courts but did not + obtain a hearing. He left home feeling that he was fully justified. + The lame point in his self-defense was his failure to support his + children, and it took a court order to rectify this in part. + + * * * * * + + Joseph Mellor is in a more logical situation in his refusal to + provide for his wife, since he is paying the board of his child in a + good institution. He makes no charge against her character, but + insists that her quarrelsome and dictatorial disposition makes her + impossible to live with. She had haled him so many times into court + and lost him so many positions that Mellor, who earns a good salary, + will deal with her only through his lawyer, who keeps his client's + whereabouts secret and will not trust the social worker interested + even to the extent of arranging an interview. + +It is generally impossible in cases of such deep-seated antagonism to +make any plans looking toward reconciliation. The "justifiable deserter" +can usually be reasoned with, and once he understands and admits his +responsibilities, can often be made to live up to them without judicial +process. + + A ship steward deserted his wife, who was both alcoholic and + paretic, taking with him his only child whom he placed with his + relatives. The woman was devoted to the boy and broken in spirit + because she was not allowed to see him. The steward claimed, + probably correctly, that he was not responsible for the woman's + syphilitic condition. The following extract from the record of the + first interview with the man is quoted to show the lines of argument + which were effective with him: + + "Man at District Office--Visitor started in immediately with the + subject in hand, thinking he was the sort that would respond to + absolutely direct dealing. Explained to him that we had been given + to understand his wife was ill, not only from alcoholism but also + from other complications; that it was suspected there might be some + difficulty with her blood and that we had been advised that her + mental condition was not now as strong as it had been previously. + Explained to him that he was absolutely responsible for his wife, + for her support, and for her care and protection, and that no matter + how far he traveled, his responsibility remained the same; that he + had assumed this when he married her. Said that he felt no + responsibility for her whatsoever, that he had done all he ever + would do for her and intended to devote his efforts toward his + child. Visitor explained to him that woman's intemperance might + perfectly well be a disease over which it would be very difficult + for her to have control; that, moreover, if she were suffering also + from a blood condition, this should have treatment. Explained that + he would more nearly meet his responsibilities were he to have her + examined and send her where she could procure the treatment + required, even if it meant commitment to an institution. At this + point man seemed more interested, particularly as visitor told him + that Arthur would grow up and would want to know where his mother + was and what had become of her; and if man had left her sick and + alone, at the mercy of strangers, he would not be able to give an + adequate accounting to his son. Man's reaction was not what visitor + had expected--he would be glad to put her away where she could not + trouble him any more but he did not intend to expend any more money. + Said he was under too heavy expenses with Arthur. Claimed he was + making $70 a month, and visitor forced him to add that he got in + addition his board and lodging on the ship, so that he was under no + expense except when on shore leave. Visitor repeated that as a + husband he was required to pay for woman's care, that that was the + right thing to do; that one way he would be a husband deserting his + wife, liable to arrest for non-support and desertion, and the other + way a husband with a sick wife for whom he was willing to provide + the medical attention and care that every sick person has a right to + have. He said if it was a question of a few dollars a week, he + supposed he would be willing to do it, and visitor felt he really + was willing to do the right thing if he only could be assured that + woman would not interfere with Arthur. Said he would never let woman + see the child, but finally admitted, if she were not drunk and was + in the hospital and it would do any good, he supposed she could." + +With persistent or recalcitrant deserters as a group, court action has +very often to be invoked. Procedure in this direction differs so much in +different communities that only general observations can be offered +here. If the man has left his home but not the town and is still within +the jurisdiction of the local court, the magistrate will usually issue a +summons (which in many cities the wife is expected to serve) calling on +the man to appear at court on the date set for the hearing. If he fails +to appear a warrant for his arrest is issued. If he has left the city +but not the state, local courts may issue warrants, which can be mailed +to the city to which the man has gone and served by the police there; or +an officer may be sent from the home town with a warrant to arrest the +man and bring him back. + +Prior to his arraignment, the best court practice calls for an +investigation by the probation officer, so that the judge may have +substantiated facts before him when the case comes up. Whether this is +done or not here is the time and place for the social worker who already +knows the family to get his knowledge in usable fashion before the +court. How best to do this varies greatly in different communities. +Sometimes the social worker is permitted to talk the matter over with +the judge personally, sometimes with the probation officer, clerk or +other court official. Sometimes a written report is required, to be +attached to the probation officer's report. Occasionally the social +worker gets no chance to be heard unless he is present to testify in +open court. In the last two contingencies, care must be taken to +safeguard information given in confidence, even by the deserter. Letters +marked "confidential" should not ordinarily be submitted in court except +by consent of the writer, as some judges hold that material so submitted +becomes a matter of public record. + +The approach to the court, therefore, is governed by local conditions. A +very important part of co-operation in any community is to see that this +channel is kept free from obstruction. In general, the probation officer +should be the best friend of the other social workers, since he knows +their language. Indeed, many social workers themselves combine the +office of probation officer with their other duties. + +After the institution of court proceedings the outside social worker has +usually little chance to affect the disposition of the case. This is +made by the judge on the basis of the testimony he elicits in court, and +on that of any preliminary investigation he may have caused to be made. +Disposition may be: + + 1. In rare instances, to dismiss the complaint altogether. + + 2. To remand for a later hearing. + + 3. To induce the woman to drop her complaint and give the man + another chance.[29] + + 4. To place the man under court order to stay away from home and pay + his wife a stated amount weekly. Custom differs in different places + as to whether payment shall be direct to the wife, through the + probation officer or clerk of court, or through public or private + charities. + + 5. To order the man to return home and contribute a stated amount. + + 6. To place on probation (together with either 4 or 5). + + 7. Commitment--usually to jail or workhouse, and for a period of not + over six months. May be longer for violation of probation or for + aggravated offense. + +When the deserting man has gone without the borders of the state, there +is the added problem of securing his extradition, which is often a +difficult one. Wife desertion is in most states only a misdemeanor (in +New York it is even less serious and constitutes in the eye of the law +only disorderly conduct). Since extradition between states has to be +acted upon by the governors of the states, it is unusual (though not +impossible[30]) to secure extradition for a misdemeanor. The reluctance +of the authorities is understandable, however, when it is realized that +to extradite for wife desertion would be to create a precedent for +extradition for any sort of misdemeanor. There is in most states a law +which makes the abandonment of a minor child or children a felony, +punishable by a long term in state prison, and it is this law which is +generally invoked when the man has been traced to another state. +Complaint then has to be made to the district (or county) attorney, the +matter taken before the grand jury and an indictment secured before +extradition papers can be granted. The man, if captured, must usually be +tried in a higher court than the domestic relations court; if convicted +he is likely to be more severely punished. Extradition means expense to +the state; it is usually difficult, moreover, to get an active interest +taken in extraditing a family deserter who, to the legal eye, has +committed an offense neither against the person nor against property, +and cannot therefore be a serious offender! + +If extradition for family desertion is difficult between states, with +other countries it is impossible, as no treaties exist even with +contiguous countries like Canada and Mexico.[31] By special arrangement +with the Canadian authorities, states which touch the Canadian border +can sometimes obtain the person of a deserter without actual +extradition. Information is submitted to the police of the Canadian town +where the man is known to be, who thereupon arrest him as an +"undesirable citizen" and arrange for his deportation. The neighboring +state is notified, and an officer with a warrant meets the Canadian +officer and the prisoner at the boundary, arresting the latter as soon +as he sets foot across the state line. + +The testimony of social workers is, in the main, in favor of probation +as against long prison sentence for men of this type. "We have found a +shortened penitentiary sentence, with release on probation, very +successful in a number of instances." "Sometimes the probation has been +more effective by its being a sort of double probation; that is, having +the case pending in juvenile court as well as municipal or district +court. The fear of having his children permanently taken from him if he +again fails to support them has, in one or two instances, had much more +effect with the deserter than the threat of a prison sentence." +"Probation works very well and occasionally a prison sentence; but +probation is better." These statements come from cities where probation +work is well organized. From another city where the probation officers +are notoriously overworked, comes a pessimistic note: "The theory of +probation is fine, but the practice is poor because the officers have +entirely too much to do." + +Probation is simply case work with the added "punch" of the law behind +it; so that when it is at all well done it should have the more lasting +results. Probation officers and other social workers agree, however, +that for certain deserters of the complacent type, an unexpected prison +sentence is sometimes a very salutary dash of cold water. + + After having tried one or two short absences, ostensibly to look for + work and finding that nothing serious happened to him, Andreas + Gorokhoff walked out one day and did not come back for five years. + During that time his wife's relatives and the community's family + agency took care of his family while he led the life of a care-free + vagabond. He was ready upon his return to settle down again for a + time; but the family agency and the probation department thought + differently, and succeeded in having him sent to state prison for an + indeterminate sentence of not more than two years. He was released + on parole for good conduct, returned home, went to work, and, during + the four years which have since elapsed, all has gone well. + +Good results may, and probably more often do, follow shorter prison +sentences. + + A man on probation for intemperance, broke it and deserted. On + account of the children's keen feeling about the consequent + disgrace, the wife made no move until urged thereto by the social + worker interested. Her husband was then arrested in a nearby city + and brought back, much surprised at the firm stand his wife had + taken. He was sentenced to four months, served two, and was released + on parole. Since his return he has not been drinking and has been + contributing satisfactorily toward the support of his family. + + * * * * * + + The first step taken by Harvey Brand when released from the + workhouse after a short prison sentence, was to stop in at a + furniture store and order a green plush parlor "suit" on the + instalment plan. Harvey had never been conspicuously interested in + his home before, and the district secretary and her committee were + aghast at this new evidence of his irresponsibility. The green plush + was, however, the outward sign of an inner burgeoning, and it warmed + the heart of Mrs. Harvey as nothing else could have done. From that + time, Harvey, with judicious encouragement over a few hard spots, + has become a good family man and a regular provider. + +The particular problem involved in the treatment of the family during +the trial and imprisonment of the deserter is that of encouraging the +woman to stick to her guns. If she withdraws her complaint or secures +his release before his time is up, she not only convinces him of her +lack of firmness but the entry in the court record seriously prejudices +her case should she make complaint there again. Unless the social worker +is convinced, therefore, that the sentence has been unduly severe, the +wife should be encouraged in every way to let her husband serve out his +time. If a policy of relief has been necessary, care should be taken +that it be adequate, so that economic pressure will not induce her to +ask for his release. If the home has been broken up and the children +committed, the mother's loneliness and desire to have her home back is +likely to work in the same way. The hope of making her husband kinder +when he returns often leads a woman to ask for his release. The pressure +of relatives and friends, and sometimes of her church is likely to be +exerted in the same direction and unknown to the social worker. +Chaplains of correctional institutions, interested entirely in the man +and with no knowledge of the family situation, are also likely to appear +in the case; and it is well to acquaint them, in the beginning, of our +interest and our hope that no step will be taken without a consultation. +If it is hoped or expected that the man will return to his home after +imprisonment, he should be earnestly cultivated by the social worker +while he is serving his time. Visits and letters will go far toward +breaking down his resentment at the part the worker is likely to have +played in "putting him behind the bars." Now is an excellent time to +introduce a man as volunteer visitor to the prisoner, if he is to be off +probation when released. If imprisonment or: "stay-away probation" does +not have the desired effect of making the deserter willing and anxious +to return to his family and take care of them, or if for any reason +return is permanently undesirable, the advisability of obtaining a legal +separation[32] should be considered at this point. If, on the other +hand, the man evinces eagerness to return home and support his family, +he comes automatically (though belatedly) into the class to be +considered in the next chapter. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[26] The Questionnaire on the Deserted Family (see p. 395 sq. of +Richmond's Social Diagnosis) has already been mentioned as suggesting +lines of investigation. It will also be found useful at the stage of +summing up knowledge gained and seeing in what direction it points. + +[27] The state of New York is an exception, as it grants only limited +divorce for desertion. + +[28] See p. 57. + +[29] See p. 132 sq. concerning court reconciliations. + +[30] See Baldwin, Wm. H.: "The Most Effective Methods of Dealing with +Cases of Desertion and Non-support," _Journal American Institute of +Criminal Law and Criminology_, November, 1917. + +[31] See p. 169 sq. + +[32] See p. 127. + + + + +VII + +THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (Continued) + + +There remains a fourth classification under treatment, of cases which +demand even more individualized care and therefore more extended comment +than those just considered. + + +4. Man's Whereabouts Known; Man Willing to Return.--Here the question +to determine is whether it is going to be a desirable thing for the man +to re-enter the home and, if so, when. This does not always lie within +the power of the case worker to decide; the couple may and often do +resolve their differences for the time being without reference to her +opinion. But she can often hasten, defer, or even prevent the +reconciliation. Careful consideration must be given the elements +involved: What causes probably operated to bring about the rupture in +family relations? If there have been other desertions what does their +history show? Is the man's willingness to return a sign of real change +of heart and purpose, or is he merely afraid of punishment? Are his +habits such as to make him a fit inmate of the home? Is he capable of +supporting the family? Can any adjustment of temperaments be made which +will lessen incompatibility? Is the wife willing to have him return? +What are her motives? Has she enough firmness of character to carry out +a plan to which she has agreed? These are only a few of the questions to +which the social worker needs to know the answer, if the decision is to +be a wise one. + +If none of the elements is present in the home out of which family life +can be reconstructed, if the man's self-indulgence and cruelty have been +proved beyond any doubt, or if affection is dead or never existed, then +the decision may have to be that no reconciliation be attempted. In many +cases the question then is how best to protect the woman and children +against the man's forcing his way upon them. Court intervention is +usually necessary here, if it has not already taken place; and a first +step is to have the husband placed under a court order to give separate +support and to stay away from his home.[33] The wife should be armed +with a warrant for his arrest, which can be served by the policeman on +the beat if the man appears. Such a man usually considers that his +proprietorship of the home and the family is not affected by his absence +or even by court orders, and when fortified by liquor he is likely to +force his entrance into the home and perhaps do harm. The protection of +the warrant is not absolute; in such cases as this it ought later to be +reinforced by a legal separation. Social workers avail themselves of +this resource far less than they should. It controverts the principles +of no religious sect and gives all the protection of absolute divorce +(including the payment of alimony) to the woman and children. To the +children it is likely to give more protection than divorce; for in the +event of the divorced husband's remarriage the children of the second +wife have prior rights over those of the first, and legal separation +makes this impossible by preventing the remarriage of either party. +Proceedings for a legal separation cannot usually be started if a man is +on probation, but may be while he is undergoing imprisonment. It should +be said that, after a separation, claims for non-payment of alimony +cannot, in many states, be pressed in a court of domestic relations but +must go to a civil court. This is usually more expensive and less +satisfactory.[34] + +Some social workers even advance the heretical doctrine that support +secured through the court from a cruel and dangerous husband does not +make up for the harm he may do and the anxiety he causes. If to force +him into periodical payments means that he will be continually excited +into seeking out and "beating up" his offending wife, the support she is +able to extort from him comes high. It is sometimes necessary to move a +family to new quarters and actually help them to hide from the pursuit +of one of these insistent gentry. Even if we have some doubt that the +wife's protestations of fear or aversion are genuine, we should hardly +take the risk of revealing her address if she wishes it kept secret. +This precaution applies not only to the man but to anyone whom we +suspect of being interested on his behalf. A district secretary +continued to refuse the address of his family to a dangerous epileptic +deserter who threatened the secretary's life and, in the opinion of +physicians who examined him, was likely to carry out his threat. + + The committee on difficult cases in a family social agency voted to + refuse to accept voluntary payments from a thoroughly worthless + deserter and transmit them to his wife whose address he was seeking + to learn, on the theory that it was better for her and her children + to be entirely quit of him, and that nothing would make him realize + the finality of the decision more than to refuse his money. The + agency, it was felt, would be in better position to protect the wife + and children if it refused to act as post office for the man. + +The same consideration might apply in questions of extradition. When the +whereabouts of a deserter of this type has been discovered in another +city a safe distance away, it may be wiser to sacrifice the money he +might be forced to contribute than to have him brought within arm's +length of his wife and family. + +A prime difficulty in dealing with the undesirable husband who is +willing to come home is often the attitude of the wife. Some of the +causes at work when a woman takes her husband back have been discussed +earlier.[35] Unfortunately, hopelessly bad husbands profit by them as +well as hopeful ones. The policy of niggardly relief to a deserted wife +has undoubtedly been responsible for many of these unfortunate attempts +to patch up a life together. "She was worn down by her efforts to keep +the household going, and, when the faint chance of her husband's +supporting her appeared, she took it" is the explanation given by a case +worker of one unpromising reconciliation, and she goes on to say of this +and another similar story: "With both of these it seems that enough +money put into the household to enable these mothers to be with their +children more and to keep up a reasonable standard of health for +themselves might have resulted in their refusing to take back their +husbands.... Our records seem to show that inadequate relief, making +life fairly hard for the deserted mother, does not tend to keep the man +from returning or others from deserting." + + The story of Mrs. Francis shows the effect of adequate relief in + strengthening her decision not to take her husband back. He had been + a chronic deserter for years, had drank heavily, been foul-mouthed + and abusive, while failing to support the family when at home, so + that Mrs. Francis had only a little harder time when he was away. + His last desertion took place when she was near confinement. Owing + to her condition, the church and a family agency co-operated in an + unusually generous relief policy. This was in a state which gave + mother's aid to deserted wives. After about a year this was secured + for her, and the health of woman and children was built up and the + home improved. Then Mr. Francis sent ambassadors in the form of + relatives, with whom Mrs. Francis refused to treat. He later + appeared himself, but she would not consider taking him back. He + escaped before he could be brought into court. As he has now been + gone over two years, it seems that her stand is a genuine one. + +On the other hand, when the man has been found and interviewed, he may +show signs of repentance, and the earlier history, together with the +opinion which the social worker has been able to form about the +character of man and woman may make it seem that a reconciliation should +be encouraged. A further question then arises: Shall the man return to +his home at once or first undergo a probationary period? + +The quick reconciliation has been a feature of the work in domestic +relations courts from the beginning of the movement. In connection with +some courts there are special officers whose duty it is to prevail upon +couples who come to the court to patch up their differences and give +each other another trial. This would be an admirable procedure if the +couples to receive such treatment were selected by a process of careful +investigation, and if probationary supervision were continued long +enough to ascertain whether permanent results could be secured. As it +actually works out it is a little like expecting a wound to heal "by +first intention" when it has not been cleaned out thoroughly, and when +no attention is being paid to subsequent dressings. + + "The wholesale attempt to patch the tattered fabric of family life + in a series of hurried interviews held in the court room, and + without any information about the problem except what can be gained + from the two people concerned, can hardly be of permanent value in + most cases. It is natural that case workers, keenly aware as they + are of the slow and difficult processes involved in + character-rebuilding, look askance at the court-made + reconciliations. With the best will in the world, the people who + attempt this delicate service very often have neither the time nor + the facts about the particular case in question to give the skilful + and devoted personal service necessary to reconstruction. As a + result many weak-willed wrong-doers are encouraged to take a pledge + of good conduct which they will not, or cannot, keep; and other + individuals who feel themselves deeply wronged go away with an + additional sense of those wrongs having been underestimated and of + having received no redress. The results are written in + discouragement and in repeated failures to live in harmony, each of + which makes a permanent solution more and more difficult. The case + worker to whom the results of the externally imposed reconciliation + come back again and again has reason to be confirmed in a distrust + of short-cut methods."[36] + + * * * * * + + A probation officer writes: "Superficial reconciliations invariably + result unsatisfactorily. In one case a reconciliation was effected + before the husband was released on probation. This was done + apparently in the hope that it would influence the court in the + disposition of the case. After a study of the situation had been + made by the probation officer, it was found that the wife was + totally incompetent as a housekeeper, that she possessed an + antagonistic disposition, had a violent temper, and that no sincere + attachment for each other existed between the couple. Before any + constructive measures could be carried out by the probation officer + to remedy this situation they separated, and it was not possible + thereafter to adjust the differences with any degree of + satisfaction. + + "On another occasion a man who had a previous prison record and had + displayed criminal tendencies was arrested for desertion. His wife, + a feeble-minded woman with one child, was being maintained at a + private institution at county expense. Through the efforts of the + district attorney a reconciliation was effected before the case was + disposed of in court, and the man was placed on probation upon the + recommendation of the prosecutor without the usual preliminary + investigation by the probation department. The couple began to live + together contrary to the advice of the probation officer. About two + months later the man was arrested for committing a series of + burglaries and the woman was found to be pregnant. Efforts which had + been made by the probation department to determine her mentality + disclosed her to be feeble-minded; later she was committed to a + custodial institution for feeble-minded women of child-bearing age. + The man was committed to a state prison." + +However, when youth and high temper seem to have caused the trouble and +there is real affection to build upon, a speedy resumption of life +together is usually the best thing. + + A young woman with one baby said that her husband had got drunk and + threatened her with a knife. They quarreled and he went to relatives + in another city. Neighbors testified how devoted the couple had been + to each other, describing the young man as handy about the house + though "lazy about finding work." He was visited by the family + social agency in the city to which he had gone, and wrote a penitent + letter asking to come home. The wife agreed; the man immediately + returned, got work, and succeeded in overcoming his incipient bad + habits. The death of the baby soon after his return seemed only to + draw the couple more closely together. The case was soon after + closed; nothing has been heard in the three years since to indicate + that any further trouble has developed. + +A study recently made under the auspices of the Philadelphia Court of +Domestic Relations seems to show somewhat better results from court +reconciliations than might have been expected. One thousand and two +couples who were reconciled in court during the year 1916 were visited +from six to eighteen months later. Three hundred and ten had separated +or had had further differences which brought them to court; 87 could not +be found, and 605, or about 60 per cent, were found to be still living +together, though with a varying degree of marital happiness, as the +report somewhat drily states.[37] + +It should be said that many of these families were probably under the +supervision of a probation officer for a longer or shorter period after +the reconciliation took place. There is no statement as to the number of +repeated deserters among the men, and we cannot estimate how many of the +605 fell within the group which might chance to have the proper basis +for reconciliation. + +The practice of the Desertion Bureau maintained by the New York +Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor is as a rule not to +advise reconciliations without a definite preliminary period during +which the man shall contribute regularly and show that he means +business. "The kind of reconciliation that lasts is the one that is +effected with some difficulty to the man," its secretary remarked. The +same probation department which furnished the stories of hasty and +unsuccessful reconciliations,[38] contributes this remarkable account of +the restoration of a family through slow and careful character +rebuilding: + + George Latham had shamefully neglected his wife and children for + several years. He drank to excess, gambled considerably, and + associated with women of loose character. He came from good stock, + however, and his early training had been excellent. The differences + between man and wife seemed impossible to adjust. After the man's + release on probation, the co-operation of relatives was secured and + through the aid of his new found employer efforts were made toward a + reconciliation. The man was gradually led away from his old harmful + pursuits and tendencies, these being replaced by wholesome + activities. He was induced to join a fraternal organization, to take + out insurance for his wife and child, was encouraged to attend + church regularly, and to open a bank account. When his sincerity was + appreciated by the wife, she agreed to resume housekeeping. Under + the direction of the probation officer, new furniture was purchased + and the home re-established. This man today holds a responsible + position under the employer who aided in his rehabilitation, and + occupies a respected place in the community. + +Very many processes are indicated in such a story. To bring about the +conviction of wrong-doing, to awaken desire and supply an incentive, to +keep the hope of attainment alive, to encourage weakened nerves in a new +and persistent effort, and all the while to build and strengthen and +develop faculties and powers that had been dormant and well-nigh +destroyed, is a task that demands a high order of skill and +resourcefulness. + +The story just told emphasizes the work which was done with the husband. +Equally careful work had undoubtedly to be done with the wife to carry +her along with the plan. The period of "stay-away probation" for the man +is a difficult time for the woman. Neighbors and friends know that he is +taking steps in the direction of reformation, and often hold the +attitude that it is her duty to let bygones be bygones and receive him +again. The promptings of her own heart are often in the same direction; +and affection not outlived combines with custom, religious precept, and +economic pressure to make it almost impossible to hold to her decision. +The social worker can sometimes slip some of the burden of the decision +off the woman's shoulders to her own by exacting a promise from the two +that they will not try living together until the man has "shown what he +can do" for a certain definite time. The economic pressure can be eased +by a wise policy of relief; but most of all such a woman needs continued +encouragement from a person whose judgment and kindliness she has +learned to trust. This is another good point at which to introduce the +right kind of volunteer visitor, one who will already have established +friendly relations with both when the time of readjustment comes, and +who can help bridge over that difficult period. In some cases it might +be possible and desirable to procure as volunteer visitors to a couple +whose marital relations have come to shipwreck, another married couple +who have learned how to live together successfully. + +The use of carefully chosen volunteers in effecting reconciliations by +the case work method has been singularly little developed. In this +respect modern theory and practice have both fallen behind.[39] +Especially is it an opportunity to enlist the service of men, whom it is +easy to interest in a problem that seems to focus about the man of the +family. A man volunteer can search for a deserter in places where a +woman, by being conspicuous, would defeat her own end. "Located man by +mingling with longshoremen on the docks where he usually worked" could +hardly be the entry of a woman visitor. A man can also be very useful in +court cases, to counteract the prejudice that sometimes exists in court +rooms against the testimony of social workers who are women. In the more +subtle processes of winning the man's confidence and helping him to +regenerate his life and recover his home there is no preponderance of +testimony in favor of the man visitor. Sex lines vanish here; the good +case worker, man or woman, volunteer or professional, is the person +needed. + +Sometimes the difficulty is not to deter the wife from prematurely +taking her husband back but to induce her to relent when the proper time +comes. + + Martin Long was intemperate, his wife was high-tempered; her + relatives advised her to leave him and he deserted, leaving the + relatives to provide for her and the three children. He was away two + years; then, becoming homesick and wanting to re-establish his home + if possible, he returned. The wife caused his arrest when he was + seeking an interview with her. The probation officer in whose care + he was released became convinced of his genuine sincerity and + regret, but the wife, still on the advice of her relatives, refused + to see him. He persisted in his hope of a reconciliation and made + extraordinary efforts during a winter of industrial depression, + putting his pride in his pocket and taking laborer's work, which he + had never done before. He finally got a good position and saved + money enough to begin housekeeping. The probation officer kept in + touch with the wife, first persuading her to receive a letter from + Mr. Long and answer it through the probation office. He interested + her in the details of her husband's struggle, and finally, after a + whole year of probation and with the help of her pastor, he induced + her to return. The probation officer kept in close touch with the + family for some months and reports: "Three years have elapsed since + that time; the family is now in a nearby city where they are living + harmoniously and in comfortable circumstances." + +A case worker who is remarkable for her success in the treatment of +estranged couples, when asked how she did it answered laconically, +"talks and talks and talks." A study of her case records, however, shows +certain points that recur again and again in her treatment. + +She encourages man and wife, separately, to talk out their grievances +thoroughly and get everything out of their systems. She then proceeds +(with a lavish expenditure of time, as indicated in her phrase) to +convince each that she is a friend, but an impartial friend. She does +not push for an immediate reconciliation, is much more likely to +recommend a temporary separation until tempers cool down and the true +facts appear. She always advises strongly against "argument" and +"casting up" the past, and tells the couple to come back to her if they +want to discuss their grievances further. Above all, they are not to +retail their troubles to relatives and friends. If either or both are +out of the city during their separation she keeps in close touch with +them by letter. She is quick to utilize their interest in their children +as a means of reawakening their interest in each other. The following +letters illustrate her method. The first was written to a young man who +was serving a six months' sentence for desertion; the others to the same +young man after he had begun a manful struggle to "come back," working +in a munitions plant in another state and later sending money regularly +to the wife, who still obdurately refused to forgive him. (The letters +are part of a series of 27 which were written to him during a ten +months' period.) + + _My dear Mr. Andrews:_ + + I was ever so glad to get your letter this week and I am sorry that + no one has been over [to the workhouse] to see you recently. I will + surely be over within the next two weeks. I know you are anxious and + you should have had a letter telling you about the children. They + are both all right now and the baby is out of the hospital. + + We have had a nice talk with your aunt and she is very anxious to + come over and see you. We will all get together and try and plan + what is the right thing to do when you come out. I will arrange it + so we can have a little longer talk this time if possible. + + Very truly yours, + DISTRICT SECRETARY. + + + _My dear Mr. Andrews:_ + + Your long letter has just arrived. I read it with a great deal of + interest and pleasure. It is fine to know you have already arrived + and have started out to make good on your promises. + + I got your cards during the week, which brought the news of your + journey. Also on Tuesday morning came your last letter, expressing + your appreciation for all we had tried to do for you and enclosing + two more thrift stamps for the children. I put these in their books. + + Yesterday I had a nice long letter from your father, enclosing one + for me to give to you. I am sending it on just as it is. I was very + much tempted to read it but have not done so. The reason I was + tempted was that I know it must be full of happiness to think you + have made such a good start. At least that was the tone of the + letter he wrote to me. + + During the past years I have worked for this society I have seen + many people "come back" strong, and always it has been because they + had some big motive in life and reason for making good. But I have + seldom known a fellow that had so many reasons why he should make + good. You have the confidence of your father and your aunt. You have + the children for whom you will do right. You have Clara, whom you + have wronged and whom you will have to teach all over again to trust + you. Surely all these things added to your own firm will to try and + undo all the unhappiness you have given people, ought to help you + every day as you prove the good stuff that is in you. + + I, of course, telephoned Clara of your starting off and yesterday + she came to the office and we had a long talk. She is only sorry + that you did not see the baby and says she will be only too glad to + have special pictures taken of the children to send you. This was + after I suggested that she let me take a snapshot of them to send + you. + + Be sure and write to your father and aunt often. And please remember + my last instructions, which were to let me know fully about + yourself. When you write, tell me all about the camp life; how they + arrange the living; how long hours you have to work; what they give + you for recreation, etc. Pick out for your friends men who can help + you, not hinder you, in your good determinations, and hope there + will be at least one man there in whom you can trust and to whom you + can go for advice. + + I will let you know about the children all the time. Clara says + Nellie [the small daughter] was expecting to see you again. Don't + worry, she will never forget you. + + With all good wishes, + Sincerely yours, + DISTRICT SECRETARY. + + + _My dear Mr. Andrews:_ + + I received your long letter this morning and was very glad to hear + all the details of camp life. It is too bad that your surroundings + are not more comfortable, but I am sure you can stick it out for + awhile. If you can raise yourself to be foreman, will you then have + to live in the same uncomfortable quarters? Although I don't know + the details, I should think it would be well if you did sign up for + the six months. It is too bad that your throat is still hoarse. + + Thank you for letting me see your father's letter. I am enclosing + it. I hope you are keeping in touch with him. + + You asked especially about Clara and whether she asked for you. Of + course she did, and she wants me to say if there is anything you + want to say to her you can send the letter here and she will write + you. She thinks that your ambition and determination to make good is + fine, and she will try and help you in every way. She has not been + in this week and I have been very busy, but I shall make it my + business to see her early next week, and if she has not had the + pictures of the children taken, I will get that attended to myself. + + So far as I can see there is absolutely nothing for you to worry + about from this end of the line. Clara is at last, I think, as fully + self-convinced as I am that you are making a splendid effort, and + she is perfectly willing to be fair in waiting until you have a + chance to get turned around financially and in making first payment + for the children. + + Next week I am going to send you down a book to read. It is one I + have enjoyed myself, and perhaps some evenings when you are not too + tired you will get a chance to glance over it. It is small and you + can put it in your pocket. Be very sure I have not forgotten the + very satisfactory talks we had and the splendid way you have grimly + started out to make good. If you can help the Government do their + work, even down there, give it a good try out. Never mind the + different nationalities you have to mix with. You have already + knocked around the world so much that you can just consider this + another opportunity of getting to know a great variety of people. + You might even learn to talk Italian and Greek! There is no + experience in life we have to go through but can be a source of + great education to us. You are sure to win out and get the respect + of everybody, your fellow-workmen as well as your superior officers, + if you continuously day in and day out simply refuse to get + discouraged and keep up your work and do as you are told. Stick by. + + With all good wishes, + Sincerely yours, + DISTRICT SECRETARY. + + +But when all is said and done, there are no unbreakable rules about +treatment. A form of treatment is sometimes to do nothing at all. + + Charles Morgan, a middle-aged machinist with a wife, a comfortable + home, and seven children (the two eldest grown), picked up his tools + and disappeared, after a quarrel over his wife's extravagance. He + had been earning $50 a week in a shop where he had worked for + eighteen years and he would not endure having his wages garnisheed + for debt. + + An experienced case worker to whom furious Mrs. Morgan made her + complaint, decided, after studying Mr. Morgan's record, that he + ought not to be prosecuted, and refused to be party to it. As he was + a man of domestic habits, search was made in a nearby city where he + had relatives. He was easily traced. Mr. Morgan was both proud and + reticent, so the case worker made no attempt to approach him, but + told the woman she must devise some way to get him back, preferably + to write him and say she was sorry. This she refused to do and on + her own responsibility adopted the clumsy device of wiring him that + a favorite child was sick. This brought him "on the run," and, being + back, he stayed. _The case worker has never seen Mr. M._, nor has + his wife been encouraged to come any more to the office, although + reports have been received from time to time through the son and + daughter that things at home continue to go well. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[33] See p. 179 regarding equity powers of the courts. + +[34] Massachusetts social workers succeeded in 1917 in securing the +passage of a law which permits the ordinary non-support law to be +invoked in case of the man's failure to pay the amount ordered after a +legal separation. + +[35] See p. 13 sq. + +[36] Colcord, J.C.: Article on "Desertion and Non-support." _Annals of +the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, May, 1918, p. 95. + +[37] Philadelphia Municipal Court, Report for 1916, p. 64. + +[38] See p. 133. + +[39] Miss Richmond, writing in 1895, says: "We would rather have a +hundred visitors, patient, intelligent and resourceful, to deal with the +married vagabonds of our city, than the best law ever framed, if, in +order to get such a law, we must lose the visitors." + + + + +VIII + +THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER + + +Many of the case workers consulted in gathering material for this book +urged that a discussion of the treatment of the non-supporter who had +not deserted be included in its pages. In so far as non-support is a +pre-desertion symptom and the non-supporter a potential deserter, much +that has been said applies also to him. But are the two groups +co-terminous, or do they only partially overlap? + +The law makes little difference in its treatment of the two, the fact of +failure to support being the chief ground of its interest.[40] Indeed, +in Massachusetts, the law under which deserters are extradited for +abandonment is habitually spoken of as the "non-support law." + +No study of which the results are available has been made to learn what +difference, if any, exists between the non-supporter who leaves home and +the one who does not. Miss Breed, in making the point that the true +analogy of the deserted family is with the non-supported family and not +with the widow and her children, says: "The deserting husband is at home +the non-supporting husband."[41] + + A case reader of experience writes: "When I look back over the many + records I have read and studied, it seems to me that it is very + difficult to draw a line between desertion and non-support cases, + either in the kind of problem they present, or in the treatment of + them. Do we know enough about non-supporters who later become + deserters; and isn't it possible that every non-support case, + certainly every beginning non-support case, is a potential desertion + case?" + +There is no doubt that the two groups grade imperceptibly into each +other; but of the twenty or more case workers who were consulted in the +preparation of this material, nearly all felt that the out-and-out +deserter, if he can be got hold of, is more promising material to work +with than the man who sits about the home and lets others maintain it. +They all recognize a common middle ground where the two groups merge +into each other; but they see decided differences in the two "wings" so +to speak, outside of this common ground. + +Seen through their eyes, the non-supporter has less courage, initiative +and aggressiveness than the deserter. "He is less deliberately +cruel--for at least he 'sticks around.'" He has not the roving +disposition, but is apt to be intemperate and industrially inefficient +as compared with the deserter. Often the married vagabond, as he has +been called, is a "home-loving man who simply shirks responsibility and +dislikes effort." He may "sometimes feel parental responsibility even +though he does not support," and he is likely to have less physical and +mental stamina than the deserter. That phrase in which the psychiatrists +take refuge, "constitutional inferiority," is more likely to describe +the stay-at-home than the wanderer. However, one social worker +(non-medical) says "a mental twist more often enters into the problem of +the deserter than into that of the non-supporter, from my experience." + +The head of a large probation department writes: "Many of the deserters +with whom we have dealt were non-supporters before coming to our +attention. Among the men convicted of abandonment, however, is a group +which is above the average in intelligence--skilled workers or men in +professional occupations." + +If this concurrence of observation is sound the reason for the social +worker's preference for the deserter as material with which to work is +not far to seek. With the deserter as described, the problem is chiefly +to alter his point of view; with the non-supporter it is, in addition, +to stiffen his will and to increase his capacity--a far more complicated +task. + +"The deserter is likely to have less justification than the +non-supporter," says an observer of long experience. Studies which have +been made of the relative capacity of the wives of deserters and of +non-supporters seem to agree that the latter have the weaker characters +and are less competent and successful workers. A comment made upon one +such study points out the impossibility of sound conclusions, if both +chronic and incipient cases are included in the two groups. The +progressive demoralization in the family of the "intermittent husband" +makes such a study of little value unless this distinction is taken into +account. + +The influence of ill-kept homes in the manufacture of non-supporting +husbands has been widely recognized. + + A drunkard's daughter, who had never known a decent home, married a + young man who soon began to drink too. Luckily, the young couple + were brought in touch with a volunteer visitor who, on finding that + the wife possessed only two kitchen utensils, a teakettle and a + "frypan," and actually did not know the names of any others, + undertook to give her lessons in home management. She proved + teachable, and her husband stopped drinking and braced up. Some + years later the visitor was able to report a well established home, + although the family refused to move out of the poor neighborhood in + which they lived because the husband had been elected councilman for + that district. + +If the inefficient wife contributes her share to this form of family +breakdown so also does the overefficient one. Many a non-supporter got +his first impulse in that direction when his wife became a wage-earner +in some domestic crisis. "There's only one rule for women who want to +have decent homes for their children and themselves," advised a wise +neighbor. "If your husband comes home crying, and says he can't find any +work, sit down on the other side of the fire and cry until he +_does_."[42] + +One case worker comments on the relation that often exists between an +inefficient husband and an unusually competent wife, made up of a +motherly toleration on her side and a tacit acceptance on his that he is +not expected to be the provider. "Sort of a landlady's husband" was the +apt description of one such man, the speaker having in mind the "silent +partner" who does odd jobs around his wife's furnished-room house. The +lovable old rascal portrayed by Frank Bacon in his play "Lightnin'" is +typical of this kind of husband. + +There is no ground for outside interference in such an arrangement as +long as both are satisfied and the family as a unit is self-supporting. +It is often a serious problem to the case worker, however, to know how +to treat such a family if the breadwinner-wife becomes incapacitated. +Such was the case when Mrs. Laflin fell ill with tuberculosis. Her +relatives described her husband as "that little nonentity of a man." He +had no bad habits and was pathetically eager to work, but though only a +little over fifty he was prematurely aged and incapable. The solution +had finally to be institutional care for the entire family, Mrs. Laflin +in a hospital for incurables, Mr. Laflin in a home for the aged, and +their two young daughters, through the interest of a former employer, in +a good convent school. "Uncomplicated" non-support, as in the case of +Mr. Laflin, is, however, rare in the experience of the social worker. + +Out of a group of 51 non-supporters selected at random from the records +of the Buffalo Charity Organization Society in 1917, 46 showed some +serious moral fault other than non-support. Alcoholism is probably the +commonest of these complications; and, as has been pointed out in the +previous chapter, is probably a primary cause as well. It will be a +matter of great interest to social workers whether the "non-support +rate" is reduced after July 1, 1919. Grounds for hope that it may be are +found in the fact that some remarkable results have been obtained by +moving alcoholic non-supporters and their families from "wet" into "dry" +territory. + +Another vice that has a direct relation to non-support (much more direct +than to desertion) is gambling. The gambler carries no signs of his vice +upon his person as does the inebriate, and it is therefore hard to +detect. It undoubtedly does not appear in social case records as +frequently as it should. Case workers should have it in mind as a +possible explanation, whenever there is a marked discrepancy between +what a non-supporter earns and what he contributes to the home. + +With the non-supporters rather than with the deserters should be put +the group of men whose wives tire of supporting them and either put them +out or leave them. These men are often not only morally, but mentally +and physically, so handicapped that there is nothing to be gained by +constantly pursuing and arresting them, although some wives extract the +sweets of revenge from doing just this. Few courts of domestic relations +are without some wives as regular patrons who pursue their husbands not +for gain but for sport. For the most part, however, the wives of such +men are philosophical. "I only wash for meself now," said one of them. + +These men, and the unreclaimed deserters, doubtless make up a large part +of the floating population of homeless men in our large cities. How +large a part it is impossible to say, for they are likely to give +assumed names and deny the possession of families. Mrs. Solenberger[43] +has noted, however, that if they are asked, not "Are you married?" but a +less direct question such as "Where is your wife now?" a story of +unfortunate married life will often be elicited. Until we have some +better method of inter-city registration of homeless men, many of these +who otherwise might be identified and in suitable cases brought back, +will continue to slip through our fingers. + +With non-support in an incipient stage,[44] it is sometimes possible to +deal so suddenly and effectively that the man is shocked into a better +realization of his responsibilities. + + A young Irish rigger, with a capable wife and two pretty babies, + lost his job after a quarrel with his boss rigger. He was a genial, + popular chap, always "the life of the party" in his circle; and his + companions encouraged him to feel that he was a much injured man. + They also helped him to fill his enforced leisure with too much + beer. When the family received a dispossess notice the wife's + patience was at an end, and acting on the advice of a society + engaged in family case work, she put the furniture in storage and + went to a shelter where she could leave her children in the daytime, + while she was at work, and have them with her at night. The man was + told to shift for himself until he could get together sufficient + money to re-establish the home. The arrangement continued for nearly + two months, during which the man lived in lodging houses, had an + attack of stomach trouble, and was altogether thoroughly miserable. + Every night he waited for a word with his wife on a corner that she + had to pass in coming from work. Finally, when it seemed to the + social worker and to the wife that his lesson had gone far enough, + the home was re-established, with only a small amount of help from + the society. During the five years since that time, no recurrence of + the trouble has come to the attention of the agency interested. + +This experiment was realized to be a ticklish one, as a man less +sincerely attached to his home might have been turned into a vagabond by +such treatment. + +In general, it may be said that, as there is less to work on +constructively with the non-supporter, court action has more often to be +invoked. If the non-supporter is a "chronic," his path must not be +allowed to be too easy. "Sometimes you just have to keep pestering him" +was the way one social worker put it. A Red Cross Home Service worker +successfully shocked one elderly non-supporter into going to work, as +described in one of the Red Cross publications: + + "Well, Mr. Gage," I said, "I see you're not working yet." + + "No, Mrs. Cox, the coal company promised to send for me." + + "Well," I said, "I think you've been pretty fair with that company. + You've waited on it for three months now. If I had the offer of + another job I'd feel perfectly free to take it, if I were you." + + "Yes," he said, "I think I should." + + "All right, I have a job for you," said I. "My husband wants a man + now at his garage, to clean automobiles. The hours are from 6 p.m. + to 6 a.m., and you'll earn $15 a week." + + His paper fell from his hands to the floor; his jaw dropped, and he + just looked at me. Then he tried to crawl out of it and began to + make excuses. + + "I haven't time to argue with you, Mr. Gage," I said. "I'll keep the + job open till seven o'clock tonight and you can let me know then + whether you'll take it or not." + + At seven he came to say he'd take the job.[45] + +If in desertion cases the interest centers very vividly about the absent +man, in non-support cases the reverse is likely to be true, because he +is often not very interesting per se, and because, moreover, he is +always on the spot and does not have to be searched for. Familiarity +certainly breeds contempt for the non-supporter. Consequently the social +worker may easily fall into the danger of disregarding the human factors +he presents, and either treating the family as if he did not exist or +expending no further effort on him than to see that he "puts in" six +months of every year in jail if possible (since the law usually secures +to him the privilege of loafing the other six). It is not safe, however, +to regard even the most leisurely of non-supporters as beyond the +possibility of awakening. One district secretary who had thus given a +man up had the experience of seeing him transformed into a steady worker +after a few months of intensive effort by a first-year student in a +school of social science, whose only equipment for the job was +personality and enthusiasm. So remarkable are some of the reclamations +that have been brought about with seemingly hopeless non-supporters that +all possible measures should be tried before giving one of them up. + + His Scotch ancestry, a good wife, luck, and a friend with insight + and skill, pulled Aleck Gray out of that bottomless pit, the + gutter. Aleck had been a bookkeeper; but he didn't get on well with + his employers, lost his job, got to drinking, and went so far + downhill that his wife had to take their two children and go home to + her people several hundred miles away. Aleck finally drifted into a + bureau for homeless men, where the agent became interested in him + and worked with him for six months, getting him job after job, which + he always lost through drink or temper. He seemed incapable of + taking directions or working with other people. In all that time the + agent felt that he was getting no nearer the root of Aleck's + trouble, though he came back after each dismissal and doggedly took + whatever was offered. Finally, the agent's patience wore thin, and + when Aleck had been more than usually dour and aggravating it went + entirely to pieces. Aleck listened to his outburst apparently + unmoved; then said, "Very well, if you want to know what would make + me stop drinking, I'll tell you. If I could see any ray of hope that + I was on the way to getting my home and family back, I'd stop and + stop quick." On the agent's desk there happened to be a letter from + a friend who wanted a tenant farmer. He thrust it into Aleck's hand + saying, "There's your chance if you mean what you say." The man's + reply was to ask when he could get a train. At the end of several + weeks Aleck wrote that he had not drunk a drop and was making good, + which was enthusiastically confirmed by his employer. He begged the + agent to intercede with his wife, and a letter went to her which + brought the telegraphic reply, "Starting tomorrow." + + How they got through the first winter the agent never knew exactly. + But they pulled through and the next year was easy, as country-born + Aleck's skill came back. Six years later, during which time the + agent heard from them once or twice a year, Aleck was still keeping + straight, the children were doing well in school, and the family, + prosperous and happy, had bought a farm of their own in another + state. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[40] The deserter who does not fail to support is usually safe from +punishment no matter how aggravated his offense. A man living with his +wife and five-year-old boy in an eastern city eloped with another woman +to a city in the Middle West. The couple kidnapped the boy and took him +with them; and the distracted woman, bereft of both her husband and +child, had no recourse in any court, since the father was continuing to +provide for his son. + +[41] Proceedings of the New York State Conference of Charities and +Correction, 1910, p. 76. + +[42] Loane, M.: The Queen's Poor, p. 102. London, Edward Arnold, 1905. + +[43] Solenberger, Alice Willard: One Thousand Homeless Men, p. 22. New +York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1911. + +[44] For a consideration of possible lines of treatment for the +non-supporter and his family, the reader is referred to Chapter VII, +where is discussed the treatment of the deserter who is willing to +return. + +[45] Behind the Service Flag, pamphlet ARC 211, American Red Cross, +Department of Civilian Relief. + + + + +IX + +NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT + + +Any discussion of laws, their application, and enforcement, must +perforce be very general, since the different states vary greatly in +laws governing desertion and in equipment for their enforcement. +Suggestions for a uniform federal desertion law are not considered here; +the term "next steps" should be read as meaning not plans in actual +prospect but rather the increase in legal facilities desirable from the +social worker's point of view. In communities where no such facilities +exist, social workers are in a good position to collect illustrative +material and push for desirable changes in law and law enforcement. +Especially advantageous is the position of the legal social agencies +such as legal aid societies and special bureaus and committees for +increasing the efficiency of the courts, many of which are affiliated +with or maintained by the large family work societies. + + +1. Measures for the Discovery, Extradition or Deportation of the +Deserter.--The nation-wide registration of males between certain ages, +under the Selective Service Act, was widely utilized by social workers +in finding deserting men, with the hearty co-operation usually of the +draft boards. This fact forms no argument for universal registration as +it was carried on in Germany before the war; no system which meant such +cumbersome machinery or so much interference with the freedom of the +individual ought to be advocated for a moment if it were solely for the +purpose of keeping track of the small percentage of citizens who wish to +evade their responsibilities, marital and other. Even such a +non-military device as that which obligates every person to register +successive changes of address with the postal authorities to facilitate +delivery of mail would be contrary to the American spirit and easily +evaded by people interested in concealing their whereabouts, unless +enforced with all the rigor of the European police system. But though +we can advocate no system of manhood registration, we can avail +ourselves of the incidental benefits of any that may be in force. + +The Federal Employment Service offers a promising means of help in +discovering the movements of deserters whose trade and probable +destination are known. It should be entirely possible to work out a +system by which the managers of the local employment bureaus should be +furnished with name, description, copy of photograph, and so on, of a +deserter who is being sought, so that the man if recognized could be +traced or quickly apprehended if a warrant is already in the hands of +the local police authorities. It may even be possible, under the federal +employment service, to develop the long wished for national registration +of casual and migratory labor. Need for some such system has been felt +by all agencies trying to deal constructively with vagrants and homeless +men. Little track can be kept not only of the individual wanderer but of +the ebb and flow of the tides of "casual labor" without some system of +this sort. If employment bureaus were required to forward to a central +registry the names and some identifying particulars of every +non-resident who applied for employment, the problem of finding the +deserter would be rendered ten times easier than it is now. + +One present obstacle to this and other improvements is the attitude of +authorities--city, state, and federal--toward wife desertion. We have +already mentioned the way in which the task of tracing the deserter has +been thrust back upon the wife and the social worker, as if he were not +an offender against the community as well as against his wife and +children. Almost as widespread is the reluctance of the proper +authorities to arrest the deserter and bring him back after he has been +found. A general atmosphere of indifference and despair of accomplishing +anything worth while surrounds any attempt to push the prosecution of a +man who has taken refuge outside the community. Hope for the future lies +in socializing the point of view of court officials, police, and +district attorneys--a process in which the social worker must play a +large part. No chance should be lost to drive home the social and +economic waste involved, by using the illustrative material which +abounds in the files of most case work agencies. + +The pernicious system by which the wife is required to serve summons and +warrant upon the offending husband who is still in the same city, should +be done away with entirely. The social agency, public or private, which +has had to support or assist the man's family ought to be able to prefer +a charge for non-support, and to take out a summons or a warrant and +serve it without the wife's being present. The agency should in this +case protect itself by securing from the wife a signed affidavit and +authorization to act in her behalf. It may seem unimportant whether the +wife makes such complaint in the court or to a private society. The +psychological effect upon the man is, however, very different. If his +wife initiates the complaint in court, his resentment is directed toward +her--a fact which renders reconciliation more difficult if this is later +attempted. In other cases, for the wife to make the complaint puts her +in actual physical danger from the vindictive husband. If he is brought +into court on the complaint of a social agency, part of that resentment +at least is transferred to the intrusive social worker, who is not +usually seriously troubled thereby and is far better able to bear the +weight of the husband's displeasure than is his poor wife. + +The absence of any treaty with Great Britain by which family deserters +can be extradited to or from Canada makes the Dominion a place of refuge +for many American evaders of family responsibilities. The National +Conference of Charities and Correction,[46] at its meeting in Cleveland +in 1912, passed a resolution on the need for such a treaty. As a result, +largely through the efforts of Mr. William H. Baldwin, the treaty was +signed and sent to the Senate for ratification in December, 1916. It was +referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, where it met with +objection and has remained without action up to the present. The +National Conference of Jewish Charities, at its meeting in Kansas City +in May, 1918, sent urgent representations to the Senate Committee, which +it is hoped may result in ratification after the pressure of war-time +legislation is relaxed. + +We should not stop when reciprocal extradition with Canada has been +secured; there is a similar situation on our southern border in states +from which escape into Mexico is easy. While American deserters are not +likely to go to other more remote countries than these two, immigration +into America from other countries creates desertion problems in other +places and presents us with a class of undesirables with whom it is +difficult to deal under existing immigration laws. In 1912 a report was +submitted to the Glasgow Parish Council showing the alarming amount of +dependency created in that one city by the emigration to America and the +Colonies of men without their families, and who subsequently drifted +into the status of deserters. This report makes the interesting +suggestion that no married man be permitted to emigrate without his +family unless he presents a "written sanction of the Parish Council or +other local authority," and further, that he be bound, under penalty of +deportation, to report himself to some authority in the country of his +destination, which would satisfy itself as to his conduct and insure +that he did his duty by wife and family.[47] Such a provision would of +course involve the revision of our own immigration laws, making wife and +family desertion a crime thereunder. + +At present the law provides deportation only within five years after +entry, and for "persons who have been convicted of or admit having +committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral +turpitude," or who are sentenced to a term of one year or more in this +country, within five years of entry, for such crime (or who may suffer a +second conviction at any time after entry). This would clearly cover +bigamy committed within five years after entry; whether it could be +stretched to cover lesser forms of marital irresponsibility remains to +be determined. (It should be remembered that a man who brings in as his +wife, or later sends for, a woman to whom he is not married, can be +deported under quite other sections of the immigration law.) + +2. Improvements in Court Procedure.--A sore point with the social +worker is the often ridiculously inadequate amounts that unwilling +husbands are put under court order to pay. They accuse the courts, +whether rightly or wrongly, of considering first what part of the man's +alleged earnings will be needed for him to live upon comfortably, and +then of making the order for whatever may be left over. + + Onofrio Mancini was under court order to stay away from home and pay + his wife $6.00 a week for the support of their two children, He + drove a two-horse truck, and, at that time, must have been earning + not less than $16.00 a week. Mrs. Mancini fell ill, whereupon + Onofrio promptly ceased all payments. The social agency interested + was permitted to make a complaint on producing a doctors certificate + that Mrs. Mancini could not appear in court; but Onofrio, when he + appeared, put up such a hard luck tale of earning only $8.00 a week + that the judge, without investigation, cut the order down to $4.00 a + week and _ordered Onofrio to return home to live_. + +A bulletin issued by the Seybert Institution of Philadelphia gives a +very interesting set of diagrams showing the relation (or lack of +relation) between the amount of man's income, size of family, and the +court order issued in the Philadelphia Municipal Court.[48] + +This report gives a series of illustrations, where glaring +inconsistencies between the man's earnings and the court order were +observed by visitors to the court. A sample of the reports made by these +visitors is as follows: + + "Man earning $30 to $40 a week at ammunition factory. Can earn $20 + with no overtime. Has been sending woman $10 a week but has + threatened to leave town. Judge said: 'You can't keep up $10 a + week--how much can you give?' Finally ordered $8 a week. Woman said + she couldn't live on that and Judge told her she had to go to work + herself then; that they should live together anyway. Woman says she + is unable to work--is ill. When man stated he was giving $10 great + consternation seemed to take hold of the entire court force. He did + not say he couldn't pay $10; the judge simply told him he couldn't + keep that up." + +The practice of assigning less than half the man's weekly earnings to +the wife and children has been defended on the ground that if he is +forced to live too economically, he will disappear and the family will +be left with nothing. This would seem to be a self-confession on the +part of the court that it cannot enforce its reasonable requirements. It +would appear that the first thing to be considered is the minimum needs +of the wife and children, taking into consideration whether the wife can +be expected to contribute anything toward her own support or whether all +her time is needed for her children. This amount should be cut down only +when there is actually not enough left for the man to live on; and his +wife and children should not be pinched for necessities in order that he +may have luxuries or indulge in vices. The habit some judges have of +accepting the man's own statement on oath as to what his earnings are is +responsible for many unjust orders. A man who does not want to +contribute to his family's support is almost sure to understate his +earnings, oath or no oath; and the confirmation of his employer (or when +the employer is suspected of being in league with him, the inspection of +the employer's books by the probation officer) is often needed. Probably +the most difficult form of evasion to combat is that of the man who +deliberately takes a lower salary than he is capable of earning, so as +to have less to give his wife. Surprising as it may seem, this is a +common practice; but skilful probation work can nevertheless find a +remedy. + +In cases of suspended sentence, payments ought always to be made through +the court and not handed by the man to his wife. It is better to have +the amount received and transmitted by some bureau attached to the +court, and so managed that the man can send the money in without +"knocking off work" to bring it and that the woman can receive it by +mail. The probation officer should not be bothered with the actual +handling of the money, but he should be promptly notified of any +delinquency in the payments. + +Whether the man under court order is on probation or not, the cessation +of payments should automatically reopen the case. At present, in most +courts, the order goes by default until the wife comes in to make +another charge. This, through discouragement or fear of a beating from +the man, she often neglects; with the result that the orders of the +court mean little in the eyes of the men, and that arrears, once allowed +to mount up, are never cleared off. + +This statement applies as well to long term orders for separate support +where the circumstances are such that no reconciliation is contemplated. +These orders are now made for a definite period of months, at the end of +which time the case drops unless the wife renews charges. A case of this +sort ought not to be terminable without a reinvestigation and final +hearing in court. Indeed it would seem, in such cases, that the children +involved should have at least as much protection as the children in +bastardy proceedings, and that the order should be made to cover the +term of years until the oldest child becomes of working age. + +The most important step in advance with regard to payments is +undoubtedly the law which has been tried with signal success in the +District of Columbia and in the states of Ohio and Massachusetts, +requiring men serving prison sentences for non-support and abandonment +to be made to work, and a sum of money, representing their earnings, to +be turned over to their families. + +In an interesting paper in the _Survey_ for November 20, 1909, entitled +"Making the Deserter Pay the Piper," Mr. William H. Baldwin discusses in +detail how this plan was made to work successfully in the District of +Columbia. + +The movement for special courts to consider cases of juvenile +delinquency and marital relations has gained such headway that no word +needs to be said here in its favor. In communities where the volume of +court business permits such courts to be separately organized, they are +generally accepted as the only means of handling these matters. In +smaller communities the need may be met by setting aside regular +sessions of the magistrates' courts for this purpose. + +Juvenile courts and domestic relations courts having proved a success +separately, there is a strong movement on foot to combine them into one +court, for which the name Family Court has been proposed. + +A leader in this movement is Judge Hoffman of the Family Court of +Cincinnati, which he describes thus: + + "The Court of Cincinnati was organized for the purpose of dealing + with the family as a unit and to ascertain possibly the cause of its + disruption. It has exclusive jurisdiction in all divorce and alimony + cases, and all matters coming under the Juvenile Court Act. It also + has jurisdiction in cases of failure to provide. The ideal court + would include in connection with the foregoing functions, adoption + of children, the issuing of marriage licenses, and bastardy + cases."[49] + +One advantage of this plan is the economy it effects in the time of +probation officers. It is generally admitted that in children's court +cases it is the parents rather than the children who are really on +probation; and with two courts and two separate probation systems, we +may even have the anomaly of the same family being under the care of +two probation officers at once. Specialization can no further go! Other +leaders in the domestic relations court movement see little merit in the +proposal for a one-part family court. They think that, in the large +cities at least, the need would be better served by having the domestic +relations and juvenile courts under one roof, but as two separate and +distinct parts of the same court. All are agreed, however, that the +powers of one or the other of the two special courts should be enlarged +to cover bastardy cases, where this is not now done. + +The domestic relations court, whether separate or as part of a family +court, ought to have equity powers, so that the usual rules of evidence +need not be so closely adhered to and more latitude could be allowed the +magistrate in disposing of cases, not necessarily according to ruling +and precedent but according to the social needs disclosed. A +constitutional amendment now pending in New York is a model for this +sort of legislation. It is in part as follows: + + "The legislature may establish children's courts and courts of + domestic relations as separate courts or parts of existing courts, + or courts hereafter to be created, and may confer upon them such + equity and other jurisdiction as may be necessary for the + correction, protection, guardianship and disposition of delinquent, + neglected or dependent minors, and for the punishment and correction + of adults responsible for or contributing to such delinquency, + neglect or dependency, and to compel the support of a wife, child or + poor relative by persons legally chargeable therewith who abandon or + neglect to support any of them."[50] + +Many courts of domestic relations which now exercise equity powers, such +as ordering that a man remain away from home or that a wife allow her +husband to see his children at stated times, do so without actual legal +warrant and subject at any time to appeal of counsel. The conferring of +equity powers on courts of domestic relations is a form of protection +both to the court and to its clients which social workers should stand +ready to work for. + +Juvenile courts have in the main outstripped the domestic relations +courts in the use of physicians and psychiatrists. The best examples of +both these courts have, however, facilities for the making of physical +examinations and mental tests, where necessary, before adjudication. +Judge Hoffman says that the fact that so many cases in courts of +domestic relations disclose abnormal or perverted sex habits, makes +important the services of a psychiatrist accustomed to diagnosing these +conditions.[51] + +In most states the jurisdiction of the courts of domestic relations +should be extended and co-ordinated. Few states escape some glaring +inconsistencies in the laws governing desertion and abandonment. There +is, for instance, much confusion between states as to whether a woman +whose husband brings her to a strange city and there deserts her must +prosecute him in the city where their home is or where the desertion +took place. Under certain circumstances the woman is forced to travel to +the city where her husband has gone, and bring action against him there, +if the courts in that place will entertain a suit. In New York state +there is no law which covers the case of a man who abandons his wife +while she is pregnant, if there is no other living child. To constitute +an extraditable crime there must have been abandonment of a child _in +esse_ not merely _in posse_. + +But no institution, however carefully established by law, is any more +effective than the people who run it; and the usefulness of the domestic +relations court in any community depends entirely upon the +social-mindedness and freedom from political entanglement of the judge +and the amount and quality of probation service. From a social point of +view, the latter is more important than the former; for a bad decision +of the court can be mitigated by good case work later on, while a poor +probation officer may nullify the effects of the wisest judicial +decision ever made. + +The importance of having enough probation officers to handle the work of +the court has already been touched upon. An overworked officer is +perforce an inefficient officer. He has usually to spend at least half +his time in the court and attending to the clerical end of his job. From +50 to 60 cases is probably all that one probation officer can be +expected to handle thoroughly at one time, if, as is to be hoped, he is +required to make careful preliminary investigations to be presented to +the judge _before_ the trial. + +In training and in equipment for the job, probation officers should be +the equals of case workers in private agencies. Examinations for +probation officers ought to be conducted by social workers of skill and +high standards. A few months of cramming at a civil service school, or a +few weeks of volunteer visiting with some case working agency, should +not suffice to enable candidates to pass the examinations. The standards +should be high enough and the salaries sufficiently attractive to draw +into this field people who have successfully completed their +apprenticeship in the art of case work. Only then can the status of the +probation officer be raised to what it should be in the court itself. +The relation of the probation officer to the judge ought to be exactly +like the relation of the medical social worker to the physician--that of +a person acting under his direction in a general way, but with a special +contribution to make to the treatment of the case and with a recognized +standing as an expert in his own particular field. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[46] Now changed to The National Conference of Social Work. + +[47] Motion, J.R.: Wife and Family Desertion: Emigration as a +Contributory Cause. Glasgow Parish Council, 1912. + +[48] Handling of Cases by the Juvenile Court and Court of Domestic +Relations of the Philadelphia Municipal Court. Bulletin 2, Bureau for +Social Research, the Seybert Institution, Philadelphia, 1918. + +[49] Hoffman, Charles W.: The Domestic Relations Court and Divorce, _The +Delinquent_, February, 1917. + +[50] For a fuller discussion of equity powers see an article by Judge +C.F. Collins in the _Legal Aid Review_ for January, 1919. + +[51] Hoffman, Charles W.: Domestic Relations Courts and Divorce. _The +Delinquent_, February, 1917. + + + + +X + +NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT + + +At this time of writing it is too soon after the signing of the +armistice to make predictions as to what the Great War may do to +marriage. Whether desertion and divorce will increase or decrease it is +impossible to say, and the experience of Europe is beside the mark. The +war will leave traces on this generation--no doubt about that; but our +losses have not been heavy enough seriously to disturb the balance of +the sexes. The war, which has been to the common people of our country a +war of service and ideals, has erased much that was petty and selfish; +it has also caused nervous shocks and strains incalculable and +unimagined. Years from now we may be able to strike the balance, but +today this cannot be done. It is impossible also to say whether the +growing irresponsibility that was generally recognized to be +threatening married life in the years before the war is still operating +with like effect, or whether the full tide of emotion in which the world +has been lately submerged may have swept at least a part of it away. + +We are dealing here, however, not so much with modifications in the +spirit of the times, as with prevention in the individual case. + +One very fundamental claim can be made concerning marital shipwrecks; +namely, that the way to prevent many of them would have been to see that +the marriage never was allowed to take place. Marriage laws and their +enforcement form a whole subject in themselves which is now receiving +careful study, the results of which should be available shortly.[52] +This fact precludes any discussion of the subject here, though the +relation of our marriage laws to marital discord is so obvious that some +mention of the matter is necessary. + +It was formerly the belief of students of family desertion that the +best way to prevent desertions was to punish them quickly and severely. +It should be said that this plan has never received a fair trial on a +large scale, for legal equipment has always lagged behind knowledge. It +may be true that just as a community can, within limits, regulate its +death rate by what it is willing to pay, so it can by repressive +measures regulate its desertion rate. But measures that keep the +would-be deserter in the home which constantly grows less of a home, +simply through fear of consequences if he left it, seem hardly a +desirable form of prevention from the social point of view. It would be +much better to catch the disintegrating family in whatever form of +social drag-net could be devised, and deal with it individually and +constructively along the lines which case work has laid down. + +Is it possible, however, to recognize a "pre-desertion state?" And if +so, what are the danger signals? One case worker answers this question +sententiously: "Any influences which tend to destroy family solidarity +are possible signs of desertion." Another writes: "We have sometimes +found it possible to recognize a 'pre-desertion state' in the +intermittent deserter, where we know the conditions which previously led +to desertion, but I doubt whether we have very often been able to note +it in the case of first desertions. In general, I should say a growing +carelessness or a growing despondency as to his ability to care for his +family are danger signals in the man, of which it is well to keep +track." + +The conditions listed in Chapter II as "contributory factors" might in +certain combinations be decided danger signals of impending desertion. +Non-support itself is, indeed, one of the most common of such signals, +though a man who has dealt with hundreds of desertion cases maintained +recently that the best and most hopeful type of deserter is the one who +supports his family adequately up to the time of leaving home. + +In the following case the items that led the case worker to suspect an +approaching desertion are set down in the order stated by her. The +couple were Irish; the man had never deserted before. + + (1) He had spoken with eagerness of the wages that were being earned + in munition plants in a city a few hours away--said he would like to + go to some of those munition places and see what he could make. + + (2) He was an intermittent drinker. + + (3) His work record was poor; employers said he was irregular and + unreliable. + + (4) Visitor felt he had never earned as much as he was easily + capable of earning and was rather indifferent to the needs of his + family. + + (5) The woman was willing to work--had applied for day nursery care, + but visitor had persuaded the nursery not to accept the children. + +After the visitor had stated the first two of the above items she +stopped, and did not add the more significant three that followed until +reminded that many workmen who drank intermittently were at that time +thinking enviously of munition factory wages; and that these hardly +constituted danger signals. The cumulative effect of all five items +cannot, however, be denied. + +Another statement, similarly obtained, concerns a colored couple, +married about two years and with two children, the youngest less than a +month old. Man had been out of work and family had gone to live with +relatives. + + (1) Man earns $20 a week but refuses to start housekeeping again, + although they are seriously overcrowded--seven adults and five + children in five rooms. + + (2) Woman says he makes her sleep on chairs so that he can get + better rest. + + (3) He is seeing a good deal of another woman, a friend of the wife + (wife's statement only). + + (4) Woman had applied for nursery care for both children so that she + might go to work. + + (5) It transpires that she lived with him before marriage, and that + the first child was a month old when the marriage took place. He + "holds it over her." + + (6) Man had been married before and divorced. + + (7) The family's habits of recreation are changed; the man no longer + "takes her out." + +Such attempts to foretell the future are not infallible, of course; but +a listing process is a valuable aid to diagnosis, and, by its help, a +situation may be uncovered which tends toward complete family breakdown. +This may be taken in time and prevented; or, if separation is inevitable +it can be prepared for in advance, the necessary legal arrangements can +be made to protect the family, and the anxiety, suspense, and useless +effort avoided which a sudden and downright abandonment would cause. + +But the trouble is that the problem seldom comes to the case worker +until matters have progressed farther than this. The real question +is--not how to recognize pre-desertion symptoms, but how to get hold of +families when these symptoms are in the incipient stage. + +Mr. Hiram Myers, manager of the Desertion Bureau of the New York +Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, who has made a +close study of the subject, holds the theory that the real period of +stress in marital adjustment comes not during the "critical first year," +about which we have been told so much, but at a later period, which he +sets roughly at from the third to the fifth year after marriage. By this +time there are usually one or two babies, the wife's girlish charm has +gone, and the romance of the first attraction has vanished, while the +steady force of conjugal affection which should smooth their path +through the years ahead has not come to take its place. It is in this +middle period that longings for the delights of his care-free youth +begin to come back to a man; if he ever had the wandering foot, it +begins again to twitch for the road; of else his fancy is captured by +some other girl not tied down at home by children. It is at this time, +too, that endless discords and misunderstandings arise--that the last +bit of gilt crumbles off the gingerbread. + +As a result of his observations, Mr. Myers feels sure that the majority +of first desertions take place somewhere from the third to the fifth +year after marriage. Miss Brandt's[53] careful statistical study of 574 +deserted families shows that in nearly 46 per cent of the families the +first desertion took place before the fifth year of married life. Of +course the jars that may come in the earlier months of marriage are +seldom brought to the attention of social agencies, as it is usually the +presence of children in the family and the consequent burden upon the +wife which make such agencies acquainted with her. + +It is to be hoped that further study will be made upon these points. It +is well known and accepted that the majority of first deserters are +young men; but if certain danger periods in married life can be +definitely recognized, many new possibilities in prevention and +treatment will be opened up. + +A number of experiments and suggestions have lately been made which may +prove to be the means of recognizing marital troubles early. The +probation department of the Chicago Court of Domestic Relations some +years ago established a consultation bureau to which people might come +or be sent for advice on difficult matrimonial situations, and without +any court record being made. The Department of Public Charities of New +York City maintains a similar bureau which is, however, so closely +connected with the court that its clients make little distinction +between them. + +In addition to such conscious efforts to reach out after marital tangles +in the pre-court stage, there has recently been an interesting though +accidental development in the city of Cleveland. During the thrift +campaign of 1918, several savings banks of that city conceived the idea +that their depositors could be induced and helped to save more money if +the banks opened a bureau for free advice to their patrons on household +management. This bureau is still in the experimental stage but it has +had an increasing clientele so far. One thing that has astonished its +management--but which causes no surprise in the mind of a social +worker--has been the great variety of problems other than those +connected with the family budget that have come to light in the bureau's +consultations. Particularly is this true of marital discord centering +about money affairs. + +If such bureaus prove their usefulness there is no reason why they might +not be greatly extended, and why other agencies than banks (insurance +companies, for example) might not be eager thus to serve their +customers. This opens a new field for the home economist, but +incidentally it would appear that, in order to function successfully, +such bureaus would need to have access to the services of agencies +employing highly skilled social case workers. It is conceivable that, if +there are developed in our large cities consultation facilities under +social auspices for people who feel their marriages going wrong, and +want help and advice in righting them, such bureaus as those described +above would be excellent "feeders" for this new form of social service. + +Family social agencies have been distinctly backward in some of their +approaches to the fundamental problems of family life. The failure of +most of them, for instance, to study or seek improvements in the laws +governing marriage or in their administration, is difficult of +explanation. Such a consultation service as that suggested does, +however, indicate a new point of departure in dealing with marital +relations which would seem to fall distinctly within the field of the +family case work agencies. It is time that these agencies began to find +means of dealing, not with the dependent family alone but with the +family in danger of becoming dependent--not with the family broken and +estranged only, but with the one whose bonds, even if cracking and +ill-adjusted, still hold. + +Concretely, why should not family agencies establish such consultation +bureaus as have just been mentioned, distinct from their regular +activities and hampered by no suggestion in their title of association +with problems of dependency? Dr. William Healy of Boston ascribes much +of his success in getting the parents of defective and backward children +to bring them voluntarily for examination to the fact that the name of +his organization (the Judge Baker Foundation) conveys no hint of stigma +or inferiority. Here is a valuable lesson in right publicity. + +A bureau of family advice such as has been suggested should be under +unimpeachable auspices from the point of view of medicine and +psychiatry; it should have the services not only of expert social +workers and experts in household management, but of doctors and +psychiatrists as well. If it could be run as a joint-stock enterprise, +in which courts and social agencies might be equally interested, so much +the better. Its investigations should be searching enough to discourage +applications from curiosity-mongers; but its services, like those of any +clinic, should be given for whatever the patient is able to pay. Its +relations, needless to say, should be entirely confidential, and as +privileged in the eyes of the law as are those of doctor, lawyer, and +priest. + +It may be objected that people guard their marital infelicities too +jealously and are too loath to discuss them to come willingly to such a +place; that the idea involves a presumptuous interference in the private +lives of individuals. But neurologists know that people in increasing +numbers feel the need, under conditions of modern stress, for a safe +outlet and a chance to discuss their perplexities and find counsel. + +Fifty years ago the interest now taken by the social and medical +professions in the question of whether mothers are rearing their infants +properly could not have been foreseen. The establishment of baby health +stations, or the activities of the Children's Bureau, would have been +looked upon as unwarranted interference between the child and its +mother, whose natural instincts could be depended upon to teach her how +to nourish it. This point of view is no longer held; and the community's +duty to take an interest in the upbringing of its children is never +questioned. Is it not conceivable that, before another half century has +rolled around, the community may take the same intelligent interest in +the conservation of the family, and that definite efforts, which are now +almost entirely lacking, may be made to stabilize and protect it? + +Educational propaganda would, of course, have to be a definite part of +the work of such bureaus. By this is meant not such modern specialties +as "birth control," "sex hygiene," _et al._, though we may by that time +have enough authoritative information about sex psychology in marriage +to be able to afford some help along these lines. Instruction in the +_ethics_ of married life and parenthood is of even more fundamental +importance. The prevailing cynicism, the present low concepts of +marriage, should be vigorously combatted by such an organization. +Religious instruction would be, of course, beyond its scope; but it +should be able to work sympathetically with all creeds, supplementing +their teachings without seeking to duplicate them. + +The services of such a bureau could not, of course, be forced upon +anyone who did not wish to avail himself or herself of them; but +definite though tactful efforts could be made to reach all young couples +(just as are now being made to reach young mothers) with information as +to where advice could be obtained. + +No trustworthy figures exist as to the number of families broken by +desertion or divorce in the United States, or as to the burden of actual +dependency caused. Courts, probation officers, psychiatrists, and family +case workers are all dissatisfied with our efforts to patch up the +families which are already disintegrating. One of the three groups +mentioned is likely before long to attempt some more dynamic attack upon +the problem in its inception. If any suggestions herein contained find +use in that program, the labor of compiling them will have been indeed +well spent. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[52] See, for example, American Marriage Laws in their Social Aspects--a +preliminary study by the Russell Sage Foundation, June, 1919. + +[53] Brandt, Lilian: 574 Deserters and their Families, p. 23. Charity +Organization Society of New York, 1905. + + + + +INDEX + +Adolph R.: case story of, 69-70, 83 + +Age: relation of differences in, 27 + +Agencies: N.Y. Charity Organization Society, 44; + National Desertion Bureau, 65, 69, 71. 101; + United Hebrew Charities, 71; + co-operative methods, 72-78, 84, 86-90; + opinions on methods of arrest, 77, 78; + N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, 136; + social problems and consultation bureaus, 195-199 + +Alcoholism: statistics on, 22; + devastating effects of, 42; + case story of woman, 57-61; + and justifiable deserters, 111-114; + relation to non-support, 156 + +_American Marriage Laws in their Social Aspects_, study by Russell Sage + Foundation, 186 + +Apparent desertions: illustrated, 8, 9 + + +Baldwin, Wm. H., 169, 177 + +_Bastardy Cases, A Study of_ Louise de K. Bowen, 95 + +Bastardy, see _Forced marriages_ + +_Behind the Service Flag_, Red Cross pamphlet, 160 + +Bigamy: and common law marriages, 98; + immigrant deserters, 99 + +Bosanquet, Helen, 13 + +Bowen, Louise de K., 95 + +Brand, Harvey: case story of, 122 + +Brandt, Lilian, 26, 27, 192 + +Breed, Mary, 61, 150 + +Buffalo Charity Organization Society: non-support records, 156 + +Bureaus: National Desertion Bureau, 65, 69, 101; + for consultation, 193-199; + Court of Domestic Relations, Chicago, 193; + Department of Public Charities, New York, 193; + Children's Bureau, 197; + importance of educational, 198-199. + See also _Agencies_ + +Byington, Margaret F., 12 + + +Canada: extradition treaties sought, 119, 169 + +Carstens, C.C., 68 + +Case illustrations: of apparent desertion, 8; + mental deficiency, 24; + reconciliation through education, 30; + incompatibility and the "other woman," 40; + interviewing the man essential, 57-61; + liberal relief policy, 62; + agency co-operation, 69, 75, 82, 83, 84; + accident case, 79; + traced through letter, 81; + reconciliation after court marriage, 95; + "American" marriages, 99; + justifiable desertion, 111, 112-114; + antagonism, 111-112; + prison sentences helpful, 121, 122; + adequate relief rids wife of chronic deserter, 131; + adjustment impossible, 134; + real affection a basis of reconciliation, 135; + rehabilitation of a deserter, 137; + wife reluctant to return to man who reformed, 141; + non-support and ill-kept homes, 153; + re-establishing non-supporters' homes, 158, 160, 161-163; + inadequate court orders, 172, 173 + +Case work, see _Social workers_ + +Causal factors: analysis of study, 10, 15; + motives and theories, 17-49; + rationalization discussed, 17-22; + summary of statistics, 21-22, 26-27, 45; + feeble-mindedness, 24-25; + training and self-control, 25-26; + nationality, 26-27; + religion, 27; + age, 27; + environment, 27-28; + wrong basis of marriage, 28; + common law marriage, 29; + ignorance, 29; + incompetence, 31; + wanderlust, 32; + inadequate income, 32; + financial mismanagement, 33; + physical condition, 34-35; + temperamental differences, 36; + sex incompatibility, 37-39; + vice and disease, 39-43; + relatives, interference of, 43-44; + racial studies, 44-45; + community standards, 45-46; + recreation, 47; + companions, influence of, 48; + shifting responsibility, 48; + underlying causes, 49; + seeking a working basis, 91-105 + +Charitable relief: desertion in expectation of, 48, 61; + Mary Breed on, 61; + immigrant's interpretation of, 99-100. + See also _Collusion_ + +Chicago Court of Domestic Relations, bureau for marital advice, 193 + +Chicago Juvenile Protective Association: study of forced +marriages by, 94-95 + +Children's Bureau, 197 + +Closing the case: extended treatment recommended, 63 + +Colcord, J.C., 61, 104, 133 + +Collins, C.F., 180 + +Collusion: infrequency of, 52, 70; + case stories of, 71, 72; + statistics of National Desertion Bureau, 71; + preventive measures, 73-80 + +Common law marriages: legal protection under, 29; + confusion of state laws, 98 + +Community ideals, see _Standards_ + +Companions: influence, and wanderlust, 47-48; + aid in finding deserters, 77, 80 + +Co-operation of agencies, 68-78, 84, 86-90; + suggested methods of finding deserters, 78-90; + probation officers, 116, 122-124 + +Corrective treatment: legislative recommendations, 164-184; + military systems aid in tracing deserters, 165-166; + obstacles, 167; + serving a warrant or summons, 168; + extradition treaties recommended, 169; + dependency through emigration, report on, 170; + deportation laws, 171; + court orders to pay, Seybert Institution report on, 172-177; + special courts for juvenile delinquents, 177, 178, 179; + Family Court of Cincinnati, 178; + domestic relations court, 178, 179-180, 181-182; + probation officers, 182-184 + +Court intervention: policy of treatment in past, 50-51; + reasons, and laxity of laws, 51-52; + social agency statistics, 52; + a last resort, 53-54; + effect of, 55, 95; + for persistent deserters, 114-117; + extradition, 117-119; + probation, 119-124; + warrant served by wife, 127; + effecting reconciliations, 132-140; + domestic relation courts effect reconciliations, 132; + volunteers, 139-140; + inadequacy of orders, 172-177; + for juvenile delinquents, 178, 181; + domestic relations, 179-182, 193 + + +Department of Public Charities, New York City, bureau of domestic + relations, 193 + +_Deserters and their Families_, 574. + Lilian Brandt, 192 + +_Desertion and Non-Support in Family Case Work._ Joanna C. Colcord, + 61, 104, 133 + +Detectives: methods objectionable, 74, 77 + +Disease: statistical analysis, 22; + and psychiatry, 24; + effects of physical debility, 34; + venereal disease, 41; + alcoholism, 42. + See also _Medical-Social work_ + +District of Columbia: non-support laws, 177 + +Divorce: relation to desertion, 7, 8; + not considered, 16; + administration of laws, and respect for, 46; + by publication, 101; + clearing bureau for, 101-102; + for long continued desertion, 110; + legal separation to protect wife, 127; + bureaus might prevent, 193-199 + +Domestic relations courts: to combine with juvenile, 178, 179; + Family Court of Cincinnati, 178; + equity powers for, 179, 180; + amendment pending, 179; + facilities, 181 + +_Domestic Relations Court and Divorce._ C.W. Hoffman, 178, 181 + +Donald, Patrick: case story of, 19 + +Drug addiction, see _Narcotics_ + + +Early influences: and self-control, 25-26; + educational, 29, 30, 46, 92, 153, 198 + +Economics: ratio of desertions in "hard times," 21, 32; + family finances, 33; + service bureaus, 194 + +Education: social studies of family life, 11-14; + early training and delinquency, 26; + background for failures, 29-30; + destructive forces, 46; + suggestions for case workers, 63; + Attendance Department traces deserters, 73; + non-support and inefficiency eliminated by, 153; + propaganda, 198 + +Ellis, Havelock, 39 + +Environment: and immigration, 27-28; + neighborhood standards, 46, 102 + +Equity powers, of domestic relations courts, 179, 180 + +Eubank, E.E., 21 + +Extradition: state problems, 117-119; + for dangerous men, 129-130; + non-support law, 150; + treaties essential, ratification pending, 169, 170; + N.Y. state law, 182 + +Extravagance: family finances, 33 + + +_Family as a Social and Educational Institution, The._ Willystine + Goodsell, 11 + +Family Court of Cincinnati, 178 + +_Family Desertion._ Lilian Brandt, 26 + +_Family Desertion, A Study of._ E.E. Eubank, 21 + +Family life: permanence of, 9, 11-15; + spiritual values of, 12, 29; + consultation service to solve problems of, 195-199 + +_Family, The._ Helen Bosanquet, 13 + +Fear of bodily harm from dangerous deserters, 128-129 + +Federal Employment Service, 166 + +Finding deserters, 65-90; + National Desertion Bureau, 65, 69, 71; + urgency of finding the man, 67; + C.C. Carstens quoted, 68; + example of, 69-70; + collusion, instances of, 70-73; + literature lacking, 74; + detective methods, illustration of, 74-77; + suggestions for, 78-80; + through military authorities, 81-82; + trade places, 82-83; + publications, 83, 84, 85; + bulletin boards, 84; + employment agencies, 84; + agency co-operation, 86-90 + +First desertions: temporary character of, 8; + medical-social work a preventive, 9; + accident records aid in tracing, 79; + critical nature of, 91; + when apt to occur, 191-192 + +First problem in desertion, 67, 91 + +Forced marriages: irregular unions, 28; + investigation of, and statistics, 92-96; + study by Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, 94; + case illustrations, 95-96 + +Forel, August, 39 + +Francis, Mrs.: case story of, 131 + +Frost, Robert, 14 + + +Gambling: effect upon character, 43; + relation to non-support, 156 + +Glasgow Parish Council, report on dependency, 170-171 + +Goodsell, Willystine, 11 + +Gorokhoff, Andreas: case story of, 121 + +Gray, Aleck: case story of, 161-163 + + +Hart, Bernard, 20 + +Healy, Dr. William, 196 + +Heredity: psychopathic personality, 24; + feeble-mindedness, 25; + racial differences, 26-28 + +Hoffman, Charles W., 178, 181 + + +Illustrations, see _Case illustrations_ + +Immorality, see _Sex factors_ + +Inadequate relief: legal separation, and the law, 128; + wife's attitude, 130; + illustrated, 131; + court orders, inconsistency of, 172-176; + recent legislation to correct, 177. + See also _Non-support_ + +Income: economic issues, 21, 22, 30; + wages and non-support, 32-33 + +Incompatibility: temperamental differences, 36; + sex relations, 37-39, 40 + +Industrial deficiency: in husband and wife, 25, 31; + national registration to correct, 166 + +Insanity: study of defectives, 20, 24 + +_Insanity, The Psychology of._ Bernard Hart, 20 + +Instability: forms of, mental and physical, 17-22; + factors that induce, 24-43, 47-49 + +"Intermittent husbands," 43, 153 + +Interviewing the man: importance of, 55-57, 105; + case story, 57-61 + +Italy: marriage registration in, 100 + + +Judge Baker Foundation, of Boston, 196 + +Justifiable deserters: and alcoholism, 42; + case illustration, 57-61, 111; + procedure with, 112 + +Justification: thirst for experience, 9, 19; + process of rationalization, 20; + venereal disease and separation, 41; + alcohol, and "justifiable deserters," 42; + Williams case illustrates, 57-61, 111; + and the non-supporter, 152-154 + +Juvenile courts: movement for special, 177, 178; + Juvenile Court Act, 178; + combine with domestic relation courts, 178; + Family Court of Cincinnati, 178; + facilities, 181 + + +Laflin, Mrs.: case story of, 155 + +Latham, George: case story of, 137 + +Legal separation to protect wife, 127-129 + +Legislation: irregular unions, 29, 98; + pioneering methods, 50-52; + state aid to mothers, 63; + common law unions, legality of, 98, 101; + Italian, 100; + divorce for permanent desertion, 110; + for justifiable deserters, 111-112; + court action for persistent deserters, 114-117; + extradition, 117-119, 129; + probation, 120-124; + legal facilities to promote efficiency, 164-184; + serving a warrant, 168; + extradition treaties, 169-170; + deportation, 171; + court procedure, 172-177; + juvenile delinquency, 177, 178, 180; + domestic relations, and special courts, 177, 178, 179, 180-182; + marriage laws, 186, 195 + +Loane, M., 154 + +Long, Martin: case story of, 141 + + +_Making the Deserter Pay the Piper._ W.H. Baldwin, 177 + +Mancini, Onofrio: case story of, 172 + +Marital vagaries: possible reasons for, 35 + +Marriage: spiritual values of, 11, 12, 29; + homelier elements in, 13-15; + wrong bases of, 28; + common law unions, 29; + disparagement of ideals condemned, 45-46, 198; + verification, and state legislation, 98-100; + registration in Italy, 100; + American marriage laws, 186 + +McCann, Herbert: case story of, 84-85, 86 + +Medical-social work: preventing desertion, 9; + summary of case analyses, 22; + psychiatry and mental deficiency, 24; + physical debility, 34; + "pregnancy desertion," 34-35; + sex incompatibility, 37-39; + bureaus of advice recommended, 193-196. + See also _Psychology_ + +Mellor, Joseph: case story of, 111 + +Mentality: irresponsible agents, 17-20; + psychology of insanity, 20, 24; + educational handicaps, 29 + +Mexico: and extradition, 119, 170 + +Morgan, Charles: case story of, 147-148 + +Motion, J.R., 171 + +Myers, Hiram, 191, 192 + + +Narcotics: percentage of influence, 22, 42 + +Nationality: statistical facts about difference in, 26-27, 44-45; + racial attitude, and percentages of deserters, 44-45; + case problem, 49; + Jewish desertion bureau, 65, 69, 71, 101-102 + +National Conference of Jewish Charities, seeks extradition treaty, 169 + +National Conference of Social Work, extradition treaty urged, 169 + +National Desertion Bureau, Jewish legal aid, 65; + story of tracing a deserter, 69-70; + collusive desertion cases, 71; + clearing bureau established, 101-102 + +Neighborhood influence, see _Standards_ + +Newspapers, see _Publicity_ + +New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor: practice + of Desertion Bureau, 136 + +New York Charity Organization Society: study of racial groups, and + percentages, 44-45 + +New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, Proceedings, on + non-supporters, 150 + +Non-supporters: as potential deserters, 149-163; + legal treatment of, 149-150; + analogous to deserters, 150-153, 188; + characteristics, 151, 189, 190; + wife's influence a factor, 152-154; + illustrations, 155, 158, 160; + reclamation, illustrated, 161-163; + approach to desertion, 188-191 + +Non-support Law: in Massachusetts, 149-150 + +_Normal Family, The._ Margaret F. Byington, 12 + +_North of Boston._ Robert Frost, 14 + + +_One Thousand Homeless Men._ Alice W. Solenberger, 157 + +Overindulgence: teaching self-control, 25-26; + wage-earning wives, 154 + + +Pelligrini, Orfeo: case story of, 99 + +Permanence of family life, 9, 11-15 + +Permanent desertions, see _Divorce_ + +Philadelphia Court of Domestic Relations, report on reconciliations, 135-136 + +Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity: report of, 7 + +Photographs of deserters: society presents to wife, 10; + tracing out-of-town clues, 78, 84, 85 + +Physical condition: ill health, 34; + "difficulty" of pregnant women, 35; + maladjustments, 38; + recreation essential, 47; + recommendations, 196-199 + +"Pregnancy desertion": how explained, 34-35 + +Preventive treatment: past opinions, 187; + non-support leading to desertion, 188-192; + for first desertions, 192-193; + bureaus for advice and consultation, 193-199; + suggestions for, 196-199 + +Probation: testimony of social workers, 119-120; + and imprisonment, 121-124; + legal separation proceedings during, 128; + officers effect reconciliation, 132; + illustrations, 133-134, 137, 141; + "stay-away" probation, 138; + economy plan for officers, 178; + number and efficiency of officers, 182-184; + consultation bureau, 193 + +Provisional quality of desertions, 9 + +Psychoanalysis: mental deficients, and heredity, 24; + incompatibility and sex perversion, 37-39. + See also _Sex factors_ + +Psychology: rationalization process, 20; + mental defectives, 24; + sex incompatibility, 37-39; + studies on, 39; + knowledge of, essential, 103 + +Publicity: photographs a medium of, 10, 78, 84, 85; + agencies and newspapers, 84-90; + divorce by "publication," 101; + illustration, 196 + + +_Queen's Poor, The._ M. Loane, 154 + +Questionnaires: liberal relief policy, 62; + searching for deserters, 78; + treatment of desertion, 106 + + +Ratio of desertions: economic factors, 21, 31, 32-33 + +Reconciliation: factors that prompt, 13-14; + and the "other woman," 40-41; + following court marriage, 95-96; + after prison term, 121-122; + considerations involved, 125-132; + unwillingness of wife, illustrated, 131; + criminal tendencies prevent, 134; + affection a safe basis of, 135; + practice of N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, 136-137; + volunteer visitors helpful, 139-140; + case worker's success in effecting, illustrated, 142-148; + bureaus to promote, 193-199 + +Recreation: why essential, 47 + +Red Cross Home Service, 81, 159, 160 + +Relatives: interference of, 43-44, 49 + +Religion: differences in, a study of, 26, 27 + +Repeated desertions: frequency of, 8; + "intermittent husbands," 43, 153; + suggestions for tracing the man, 79; + relative nature of, 92 + +Responsibility: self-therapy illustrated, 8; + deserters disclaim, 19-20; + essentials of early training, 25-26; + education promotes, 29, 198; + and charitable relief, 48, 100; + wage-earning wives, and non-supporters, 154 + +Richmond, Mary E.: on volunteers in case work, 78, 106, 140 + +Ridicule: of matrimony, by press and films, 45-46 + +Russell Sage Foundation, study, American marriage laws, 186 + + +Selective Service Act, 165 + +Sex factors: determine forgiveness, 13-14; + statistical summary, 21-22; + "pregnancy desertion," 34-35; + incompatibility, 37-40; + immorality, 39, 96; + knowledge of sex psychology essential, 103 + +_Sex in Relation to Society._ Havelock Ellis, 39 + +_Sexual Question, The._ A. Forel, 39 + +Seybert Institution, Philadelphia, on relation of income to court order, 173 + +Slacker marriages, 97 + +Social workers: opinions of, 7-8; + appreciative faculties of, 11; + knowledge of sex relations imperative, 37-38; + diagnoses referred to specialists, 38; + undervalue recreation, 47; + questionnaires on treatment, 62, 78, 106; + detective methods, 68-90; + agency co-operation, 78-90; + sex problems, 103; + necessary information for, summarized, 104-105; + protection of legal separation, 127; + successful case records, 142-148 + +Solenberger, Alice W., 157 + +Spiritual values: of family life, 11-12, 29 + +Standards: and temperamental differences, 36; + community concepts, 45-46; + neighborhood influence, 47, 102 + +State aid to mothers, 63; + vital statistics, 93 + + +Temporary desertions: report of Philadelphia Society, 7-8; + domestic crises and vagaries, 34-35. + See also _Reconciliation_ + +Theories to explain desertion, 20. + See also _Causal factors_ + +Treatment of desertion: policy, past and present, 50-64; + court intervention, 50-54; + interviewing the man, 55-60, 105; + relief to families, 61; + opinions of case workers, 62; + case story, 62; + state aid, 63; + closing the case, time for, 63; + changes in worker's attitudes, 64; + whereabouts known, willing to return, 125-148; + Philadelphia Court of Domestic Relations, study by, 135-136; + N.Y. Association for Improving Condition of the Poor, practice of, 136; + family restoration illustrated, 137; + volunteers recommended, 139-140; + wife relents, illustration of reconciliation, 141; + study of successful worker's records, 142-148 + + +United Hebrew Charities, 71 + + +Vagaries: marital, 34-35 + +Venereal disease: relation to desertion, 41 + +Verification: of marriage, 98-99; + in Italy, 100; + Latin-American custom, 100 + +Volunteers: service valuable for effecting reconciliation, 139-140 + + +Wanderlust: instability of temperament, 19; + relation to desertion, 32 + +Warrant for arrest: protection afforded wife, 127; + system inadequate, 168 + +West, Alfred: case story of, 30 + +_Wife and Family Desertion: Emigration as a Contributory Cause._ J.R. + Motion, 171 + +Wife who deserts, not considered, 15 + +Williams, Mrs. Clara: case story of, 57-60, 111 + + + +SOCIAL WORK SERIES + +EDITED BY MARY E. RICHMOND + + +Many people have general views in these days upon almost any matter +which affects social welfare; we all know how easily such views find +expression. On the other hand, only a few have the patience and the +insight to gather the specific facts and find out what they mean. Still +fewer--having done so much as this--can explain the meaning lucidly and +in brief compass. + +It is the ambition of the Social Work Series to embody, in the field of +social service at least, the message of a representative group of these +few. The first three volumes are as follows: + +Disasters and the American Red Cross in Disaster Relief. By J. Byron +Deacon. + +Household Management. By Florence Nesbitt. + +Broken Homes. By Joanna C. Colcord. + +Price, Cloth, 75 cents each. 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