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SOCIAL WORK SERIES 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 A STUDY OF FAMILY DESERTION AND 
 ITS SOCIAL TREATMENT 
 
 By 
 JOANNA C. COLCORD 
 
 SOPEFINTHNDENT OP THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY 
 
 OF THE City of New York 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 
 
 1919 
 
COPYRIGHT. I9I9. BV 
 THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 
 
 ^^0'^ 
 
 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 in- 
 stance." 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 
 infeUcities and broken homes are not universal, for- 
 tunately, 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 chil- 
 
« , « ; • < 
 
 « « • 
 
 t»REFACE 
 
 1 
 
 • 
 
 •. ' « • . » 
 
 dren; 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 burn- 
 
 ing." il 
 
 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 thaj 
 would punish the deserter and aid in his extraditioi 
 whenever he took refuge across a state line. Laws 
 the strictest, and these well enforced, seemed for a whil^ 
 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, per^ 
 haps, 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 Col cord 
 makes clear, but no longer are they either the first or the 
 second resort of the skilful probation oflicer, family case 
 worker, or child protective agent. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 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, prefer- 
 ably in small, practical volumes each written by a spe- 
 cialist. 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 indi- 
 viduals. 
 
 Grateful acknowledgment should be njade 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 in- 
 debtedness to Miss Betsey Libbey, Miss Helen Waller- 
 stein 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 Ray- 
 mond of Columbus; Mrs. Helen Glenn Tyson of Pitts- 
 burgh; Mr. Arthur Towne of Brooklyn* Mr. E. J. 
 Cooley, Mr. Charles Zunser, Mr. Hii:am 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 
 
 T. 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 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TT HAS frequently been said that desertion is 
 the poor man's divorce but, like many epi- 
 grams, this one hardly stands the test of expe- 
 rience. 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 any- 
 thing so final and definite as divorce. 
 
 In a study of desertion made by the Philadel- 
 phia Society for Organizing Charity in 1902,* it 
 
 * Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Philadelphia 
 Society for Organizing Charity, p. 25. 
 
» • t r • 
 
 '" ' ;••;;••;;.; ••; j^hc^ken homes 
 
 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 rela- 
 tions 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 re- 
 sume 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 
 
 8 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 explana- 
 tion 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 work- 
 ers 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 understand- 
 able despair social workers sometimes overlook 
 essential facts about the nature of marriage. 
 The permanence of family life is one of the foun- 
 dation stones of their professional faith; yet 
 they may fail to recognize certain manifestations 
 
 9 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 occa- 
 sion to print copies of a deserter's photograph 
 to use in seeking to discover his present where- 
 abouts, often presents his wife with an enlarge- 
 ment of the picture suitable for framing. The 
 procedure displays, nevertheless, a profound in- 
 sight 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 for- 
 given and received into their hornes 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? 
 
 ID 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is fortunate (since the majority of case 
 workers are unmarried) that simply to have 
 been a member of a family gives one some under- 
 standing 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 itf "marriage 
 has its source in the family rather than the 
 family in marriage."* 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 convention- 
 alized 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 
 
 * Goodsell, Willystine: The Family as a Social and Edu- 
 cational Institution, p. 8. New York, The Macmillan Co., 
 1915. 
 
 II 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 any period be found in its laws and learned dis- 
 courses? We might rather expect to find stu- 
 dents of these sources preoccupied with the out- 
 ward 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."* It is hardly conceivable that in 
 any society, however primitive, there were not 
 some real families — even when custom ran other- 
 wise — in which marriage meant love and kind- 
 ness and the mutual sharing of responsibilities. 
 And these families, today as always, are the cre- 
 ators 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 perma- 
 nent, all that is best in love. The pain of life is 
 hallowed by it, the drudgery sweetened, its pleas- 
 
 * Byington, Margaret F.: Article on "The Normal 
 Family," Annals of the American Academy of Political 
 and Social Science, May, 191 8. 
 
 12 
 
V INTRODUCTION 
 
 ures 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 char- 
 acter from our ancestors, are guarded and pre- 
 served 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."* It follows that the 
 most trying and discouraging feature of social 
 work with deserted wives; namely, their deter- 
 mination 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 deci- 
 sion to forgive the wanderer. There are many 
 other factors — use and wont; pride in being 
 
 * Bosanquet, Helen: The Family, p. 342. London, 
 Macmillan & Co., 1906. 
 
 13 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 able to show a good front to the neighbors; a 
 feeling that it is unnatural to be receiving sup- 
 port 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 hay e to take you in 
 
 Something you somehow haven't to deserve."* 
 
 A woman who had left her home town add 
 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 
 
 * Frost, Robert: North of Boston, p. 20. New York, 
 Henry Holt & Co., 1915. 
 
 14 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 imagi- 
 nation 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 fami- 
 lies, to present illustrations from the best discov- 
 erable 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 
 
 2 15 
 
I 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 mother, or the divorced couple. It is assumed 
 throughout that the reader is famiHar with the 
 general theory of modern case work ; and no more 
 is here attempted than to give a number of sug- 
 gestions 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 construc- 
 tive measures as are now possible. 
 
 i6 
 
II 
 WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 * * T) EFORE 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 unfortu- 
 nate 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 
 
 17 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 is well for the social worker to make the latter 
 the starting point in dealing with the man, ac- 
 cepting the most preposterous as at least worthy 
 of discussion. The absconder is often too inar- 
 ticulate 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 per- 
 fectly 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 laterr 
 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 pas- 
 sion 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 bur- 
 den 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 
 
 i8 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 "wan- 
 derlust" — was driving him to distraction. Or 
 perhaps, under the urge of his own subcon- 
 scious feeling of failure, he may have convinced 
 himself that if he could "shake" the old environ- 
 ment 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,* 
 "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 wher- 
 ever 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 
 
 *A11 names of deserters given throughout the text are 
 pseudonyms. 
 
 19 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 find justification for doing what we want to do 
 is characteristic of human beings, and the de- 
 serter is no exception. He attempts to "ration- 
 alize" 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 suc- 
 ceeds in making himself believe that his wife 
 is more to blame than he for his having left 
 home.* 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 house- 
 keeping; that its causes can all be reduced to 
 sex incompatibility. All these factors undoubt- 
 
 * For an excellent discussion of the process of rational- 
 ization see The Psychology of Insanity, Bernard Hart, 
 Cambridge University Press, 19 14. 
 
 20 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 edly have their bearing on the problem, but 
 there is no one cause or group of causes under- ^ 
 lying breakdowns in family morale. The ratio 
 of desertions has been observed to decrease 
 rather than to increase in "hard times";* more- 
 over, it is a matter of common observation that 
 not all slovenly and incompetent wives are de- 
 serted, and that many married couples in all 
 walks of life whose sex relationships are unsatis- 
 factory, nevertheless maintain the fabric of 
 family life and support and bring up their chil- 
 dren 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 percent- 
 age of cases due to each. A summary of these 
 
 * For a thoughtful discussion of this point see Eubank, 
 E. E.: A Study of Family Desertion. Chicago Depart- 
 ment of Public Welfare, 19 16. 
 
 21 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 percentages grouped under five heads is as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 
 
 Percentage 
 
 I. 
 
 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 be- 
 tween sex factors, temperamental traits, and men- 
 tal disabilities? But the main defect in such 
 statistical studies is that they assume in each case 
 one cause, or at least one cause sufficiently dom- 
 inant to dwarf the rest ; and few of the causes 
 listed are really fundamental. The mind instinct- 
 ively begins to reach back after the causes of all 
 these causes. The social worker who made the 
 sweeping assertion that there are two great rea- 
 sons for marital discord — "selfishness in men and 
 peevishness in women " — came a good deal nearer 
 
 22 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 struc- 
 ture. The problem presented, if it could have 
 been recognized in time, is not essentially differ- 
 ent 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 his- 
 tory up to the present. 
 
 Considering first the personal as distinguished 
 
 23 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 from the community factors in desertion, these 
 may be listed as follows: 
 
 CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE MAN AND 
 
 WOMAN 
 
 1. Actual Mental Deficiency. — Character weak- 
 nesses 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 mark- 
 edly modified when it was discovered that not only his 
 
 24 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 sur- 
 roundings 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 in- 
 sidious in its effect on later marital history is 
 
 25 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 the home in which no self-control is learned. 
 The so-called "good homes" in which children 
 are exposed to petting, coddling, and overindul- 
 gence — 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, re- 
 ligion and age are recognized as having a causa- 
 tive relation to desertion. Miss Brandt* 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 
 
 * Brandt, Lilian: Family Desertion. The Charity Or- 
 ganization Society of New York City, 1905. 
 
 26 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 popula- 
 tion 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 oppor- 
 
 27 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 tunities 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 preg- 
 nancy had occurred, as well as marriages where 
 coercion was a factor for other reasons.* 
 
 When there have been sex relations before 
 marriage, unless the custom of the community 
 sanctions such intimacy, there are likely to de- 
 velop 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. 
 
 * For a fuller discussion of forced marriages, see p. 92 sq. 
 
 28 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 There should also be included here those irreg- 
 ular 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.* 
 
 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. Irreg- 
 ular school attendance, early "working papers," 
 a dead-end job with no educational possibilities 
 
 * See also p. 98, 
 29 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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, how- 
 ever, 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 re- 
 stricted 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 char- 
 
 30 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 acter. 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."* 
 
 Corresponding to and complementing the 
 man's industrial defects, and springing from the 
 same causes, is the woman's failure in the busi- 
 ness 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 respon- 
 sible 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. 
 
 * See also p. 154. 
 3 31 
 
^^^^^^ BROKEN HOMES *^^^H 
 
 F^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 figur- 
 ing among them. 
 
 8. Money Troubles. — As has already been said, 
 it is impossible to show any direct relation be- 
 tween small incomes and desertion. The con- 
 nection between low wage and non-support is 
 of course a great deal closer. The inadequate 
 income unquestionably acts indirectly to break 
 
 32 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 mat- 
 ter, 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 
 
 33 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 work- 
 ers 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 superin- 
 duce a condition of despondency and readiness 
 to give in. In the woman, it brings about care- 
 less housekeeping, loss of attractiveness, and dis- 
 inclination to marital intercourse — all factors 
 which contribute directly to desertion. Con- 
 tinued 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 consider- 
 ation of one of the most puzzling types of 
 abandonment — the "pregnancy desertion." At- 
 tempts have been made to explain it on the 
 ground of the instinctive aversion of the male 
 sex for domestic crises. But the impulse that 
 
 34 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 Euro- 
 pean 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 diffi- 
 
 35 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 cult 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 incom- 
 patibility 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 dif- 
 ferences center about standards of right and 
 wrong or proper and improper conduct. Espe- 
 j6ially is this manifested in the bringing up of 
 
 V the children. Extreme self-righteousness on the 
 part of one or the other, nagging and petty 
 
 Y criticism, unr easonable iea lousv. "sulking spells," 
 violent quarrels, are some of its manifestations. 
 
 \/The idea of posses sion 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 
 
 36 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 dis- 
 cord. Some of them are better understood by 
 the social worker than was formerly the case; 
 but many of them are obscure even to the prac- 
 titioner of mental medicine, to whom their re- 
 sults 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 be- 
 cause 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 
 
 37 
 
J 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 often clamor for attention and need to be recog- 
 nized by the first responsible person to whose 
 notice they are brought. Unless she knows, 
 for instance, what constitutes excess in sex rela- 
 tions, a worker may misunderstand the situa- 
 tion 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 emphat- 
 ically — 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 men- 
 tal (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 
 
 38 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 given, needless to say, by the physician and not 
 by the case worker. If uncorrected such mal- 
 adjustments are apt to result in marital ship- 
 wreck. 
 
 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,* 
 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 degenerati ve effect_ on personality and the 
 lowered ideals of marriage it induces, has a real 
 effect in bringing about desertion. The "other 
 
 * 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). 
 
 39 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 man" and the "other woman" type of deser- 
 tion, 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 de- 
 sertion 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 circum- 
 stances, 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 
 
 40 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 breaking her heart about him, the man decided to "cut 
 out" the correspondence. A Uttle 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 dis- 
 ease and desertion. In so far as syphilis brings 
 about mental and physical deterioration, the 
 relation between the two is obvious. The pres- 
 ence 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 
 
 41 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 de- 
 sertion 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 ner- 
 vous 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 con- 
 nection with desertion than alcoholism. What 
 relation drugs and alcohol will hold to deser- 
 tion after July i, 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. 
 
 42 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 fol- 
 lowing 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 
 
 43 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 sanc- 
 tity 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 re- 
 cently made of 480 deserters known to the New 
 York Charity Organization Society in 19 16-17 
 whose nationality was given. The results in 
 percentage form are given for what they may be 
 worth, compared with the same percentage in 
 
 44 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 birtl 
 
 1 among 480 
 
 families under 
 
 
 deserters 
 
 care for all 
 causes 
 
 United States — white 
 
 30.6 
 
 29.7 
 
 " — colore 
 
 d II. 2 
 
 5-6 
 
 Irish 
 
 9-7 
 
 14.7 
 
 Other British 
 
 
 5-0 
 
 4.7 
 
 German 
 
 
 6.2 
 
 6.2 
 
 Itahan . 
 
 
 20.2 
 
 28.0 
 
 Austrian 
 
 
 5-5 
 
 4:8 
 
 Russian' . 
 
 
 2."a^ 
 
 I.O 
 
 Polish ^ . 
 
 
 3-3 
 
 1/2 
 
 Other . 
 
 
 s-1 
 
 4.1 
 
 *-- 
 
 lOO.O 
 
 lOO.O 
 
 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 
 
 45 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 de- 
 cided reaction on respect for those laws and for 
 the institution itself. Similarly, the administra- 
 tion of divorce laws may affect the popular 
 conception of marriage. One entire neighbor- 
 hood 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." 
 
 46 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 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 Ck>nipanions. — As a factor in de- 
 sertion this is closely connected with the two 
 just discussed. Neighborhood standards, as 
 they affect individuals, are apt to be trans- 
 mitted through the small group that stands 
 nearest, and a man's companions have the freest 
 opportunity to influence him during their com- 
 
 4 47 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 mon periods of recreation. The influence of 
 companions is not often met as a force deliber- 
 ately exerted to bring about desertion; but, on 
 the other hand, a man's own mental contrast 
 between his condition and that of his unmar- 
 ried 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 encour- 
 aged 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 de- 
 liberately reckon upon transferring the burden 
 
 48 
 
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 
 
 of their family's support to others, or are in- 
 duced by these considerations to leave.* 
 
 In trying to determine the cause for any given 
 desertion it is well to keep in mind from the be- 
 ginning 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 vaude- 
 ville actor of Italian parentage married a Jew- 
 ish girl, a cabaret singer, and took her home to 
 live with his parents. Was his subsequent de- 
 sertion 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 im^ 
 portant one of the foregoing series. It is one 
 which the social case worker must never be 
 content to leave unanswered. 
 
 *See p. 70 sq. for a discussion of collusive desertion. 
 
 49 
 
 ^ 
 
Ill 
 
 CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 
 
 T TNCONSCIOUSLY and imperceptibly, the 
 ^^ point of view about the treatment of de- 
 sertion has been changing during the past fifteen 
 years. The case worker's attention used to be 
 focussed on the danger of increasing the deser- 
 tion rate by a poHcy 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 de- 
 serted wife go at once to court and institute 
 proceedings against her husbands He was often 
 not seen by the social worker until he appeared 
 in court. The policy toward the family mean- 
 time 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 
 
 50 
 
CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 
 
 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 investiga- 
 tion 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 won- 
 der 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, 
 
 51 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 disposi- 
 tion 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 suc- 
 cessive 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 
 
 52 
 
CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 
 
 breakdowns. In particular, the relation of sex 
 maladjustments to failure in marriage have re- 
 ceived 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 un- 
 equivocally, that they take cases into court only 
 as a matter of last resort, after case work methods 
 have been tried and have (aHe^. In no other 
 case where court action is undertaken by one 
 individual against another does the relation be- 
 tween 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 
 
 53 
 
y 
 
 y 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 them. No matter how far apart they have 
 drifted, or how unforgivable has been the de- 
 serter's offense, something irrevocable does hap- 
 pen 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 com- 
 plaint against him. It is an instinctive realiza- 
 tion that she is abandoning hope, which under- 
 lies many a woman's reluctance to "take a 
 stand against her husband." Many social work- 
 ers (including some probation officers and court 
 workers) now feel that such a stand should be 
 urged only in the full conviction that the pro- 
 tection 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 possibil- 
 ity 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 
 
 54 
 
CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 
 
 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 special- 
 ized 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 mat- 
 ter of dealing too exclusively with the woman of 
 the family; in desertion cases it is more than 
 desirable, it is vitally necessary to have deal- 
 ings 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 
 
 55 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 power of the human mind to "rationaHze" 
 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 dis- 
 trust, built upon the basic fact of their incom- 
 patibility, 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 
 
 56 
 
CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 
 
 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 exoner- 
 ating 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 aiA 
 
 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 her- 
 self 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 
 
 57 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 uncompHcated 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 
 Hving 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 Hving, to pay 
 his wife $6.00 a week. No probation was thought nec- 
 essary 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 
 
 58 
 
CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 
 
 reports that Mrs. Williams drank came to the soci- 
 ety. 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 unsatis- 
 factory 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. WilHams 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 consent- 
 ing 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 hfe, it being Mrs. Wilhams' 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 
 
 59 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 inter- 
 vals, 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 employ- 
 ers. 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 fre- 
 quent 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 
 
 60 
 
CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 
 
 her and extending down to the very week of the inter- 
 view.* 
 
 There have been striking changes not only in 
 the treatment of the deserter but in that of his 
 family. Writing in 1910, Miss Breedf deprecates 
 the habit of fostering the deserter's "easy-going 
 conviction that his family will get along some- 
 how without him" by giving relief. She ap- 
 proves 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 worth- 
 less father an intermittent member of the house- 
 hold, is as bad an environment as children can 
 have — its very fluctuations making for nervous 
 
 * 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, 19 18, p. 98. 
 
 t Breed, Mary: Eleventh New York State Conference, 
 1910, p. 76. 
 
 61 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 instability and a wrong point of view later on. 
 There is a possibility that other would-be de- 
 serters may be deterred by temporarily breaking 
 up the home, and that an occasional absconding 
 father may be brought back. But the fact re- 
 mains that social workers have, in practice, de- 
 parted 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 
 
 62 
 
CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 
 
 mothers" to cover deserted wives is an indica- 
 tion of this changed view. In most states, how- 
 ever, s^ome safeguards are set up; the wife must 
 take out a warrant, and a given number of yealk 
 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 friend- 
 ship. 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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, 
 5 63 
 
 -V 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 emphasis on punitive and repressive measures, 
 more consideration of the man's point of view, 
 less tendency to press court action, at l^ast in 
 #e beginning, fewer commitments of children, 
 a more liberal relief policy (partly as a preven- 
 tive of "forced reconciliations"), and lastly, 
 longer supervision after the man has resumed 
 support of his family. 
 
 64 
 
IV 
 
 FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 \ FEW years ago a young Jewish woman re- 
 ^ ^ ported to the National Desertion Bureau* 
 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 hfe, his tastes and 
 peculiarities. Among other things the Bureau learned 
 that the man's father had died in America years ago, hav- 
 ing 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 
 
 * 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. 
 
 65 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 grown and landed in New York, but his few poor clues 
 availed him little against the dijSiculties 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 dis- 
 played in the foregoing account are great assets 
 to the one who must institute search for a rniss- 
 ing 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 
 
 66 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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 situa- 
 tion. No plan can safely be made that leaves 
 him out, but — there's the rub! — you cannot in- 
 clude 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 » 
 birt the most urgent of the problems that con- 
 front the worker, who tries to deal with a de- 
 serted family. Unless he can be found the whole 
 plan rests upon shifting sand. 
 
 A prompt and vigorous effort to find the i 
 absentee is therefore a first requisite in dealing 
 with family desertion. Unfortunately, many 
 case workers, having started bravely and ex- 
 hausted the first crop of clues, become discour- 
 aged and fall back on the supposition that the 
 
 67 ■ • 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 safe- 
 guard. 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.* 
 
 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 
 
 * C. C. Carstens, Proceedings of the Fifth New York 
 State Conference of Charities and Correction, 1904, p. 196. 
 
 68 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 a deserter is taken from the files of the National 
 Desertion Bureau.* 
 
 Adolph R. deserted his wife and their six little children 
 on September i, 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 dis- 
 closed 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 dis- 
 patched 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 noti- 
 
 * See p. 65, footnote. 
 
 69 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 fied by wire to arrest, but again a telegram came: " Adolph 
 R. left city. Learned from Cigarmakers' Union head- 
 quarters he went to Cincinnati. Wire Joe Rapp, 13 16 
 Walnut Street, Cincinnati Union Headquarters. Man 
 said he was going to Cincinnati or Indianapolis. Man 
 joined union Richmond, Va., November 19, 191 1, and 
 reports to union in all cities." The Desertion Bureau 
 immediately telegraphed to Cincinnati and Indianapolis. 
 The United Jewish Charities of Cincinnati working to- 
 gether with the labor union lost little time in effecting his 
 arrest. 
 
 Many theories about family desertion have 
 sufTered 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 deser- 
 tion 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 in- 
 stance once a year," said one case worker. 
 
 70 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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 dif- 
 ferent 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 em- 
 phasized. Testimony in the other direction is, 
 however, advanced by the National Desertion 
 Bureau, which found that about lo per cent of 
 the applications made in 1910 to the United 
 Hebrew Charities of New York for relief be- 
 cause 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 
 
 71 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 husband is, or has a very good idea, but does 
 not want him to return and so keeps her knowl- 
 edge to herself. "In two of our regular allow- 
 ance families," writes the case supervisor of a 
 family agency, "we discovered — one quite inci- 
 dentally, one after the allowance had been dis- 
 continued 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 organ- 
 izations. 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, neverthe- 
 less the arrangement apparently met with mutual 
 approval." 
 
 To guard against this and similar omissions 
 on the woman's part, more than one agency 
 
 72 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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 col- 
 lusive desertion is not the first and most im- 
 portant 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 ob- 
 scure 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 Attendan^H^ 
 Department [of the public school system] to 
 which he wrote after a three years' absence ask- 
 
 73 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 ing 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 devel- 
 oped a special technique. The decided reaction 
 against detective methods which has been ap- 
 parent 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 convic- 
 tion. 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 
 f^prm 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 
 
 74 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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 hkely 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 pro- 
 bation 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 illustra- 
 tion of its own methods in seeking deserting 
 
 75 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 Httle 
 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 protec- 
 tion of the weak and helpless may justify, in 
 certain circumstances, any subterfuge. But the 
 detective who arrests the criminal in ways like 
 
 76 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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 police- 
 man 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."* 
 
 * 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 theo- 
 retical 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 characteris- 
 
 77 
 
^^ 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 What are some concrete suggestions, devel- 
 oped 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 ca^es 
 makes this part of its routine procedure. 
 
 tic of the criminal, a sort of negative bravado. When the 
 deserter is arrested, all he can hope for and expect is a fair 
 deal." 
 
 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 impor- 
 tant what occurs before the man's arrest but how he is 
 treated after he comes within the jurisdiction of the proba- 
 tion officials." 
 
 78 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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 an- 
 other woman, generally goes to some cheap 
 lodging house or, if of foreign birth, he may 
 seek out the quarter where those of his national- 
 ity 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 
 6 79 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 immi- 
 grants 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, how- 
 ever, 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. 
 
 80 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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 where- 
 abouts. 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 de- 
 livered 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. Be- 
 fore the war, private case working agencies had 
 
 8i 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 as- 
 sumed 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, 
 
 82 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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. Cer- 
 tain seasonal occupations give the periodical de- 
 serter a great opportunity. Among these are 
 hop picking, berry picking, and lumbering. The 
 amusement parks near the large cities also fur- 
 nish 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 par- 
 ticular trades — to employers, union officials or 
 fellow-workmen who may throw light on a de- 
 serter's movements. The story of Adolph R.* 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 
 
 * See p. 69. 
 
 83 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 cer- 
 :ain trade union to post a description and photo- 
 graph 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 employ- 
 ment service, with free inter-city communica- 
 tion, 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 con- 
 struction in Russia, returned to this country and dis- 
 appeared 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 
 
 84 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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, emplo3mient 
 agencies, etc., and finally the following advertisement was 
 inserted in the local paper: "Information Wanted — Any- 
 one knowing the whereabouts of Herbert McCann, Mon- 
 treal, who returned from Russia in June, will confer a 
 favor upon his family by notifying Social Service Build- 
 ing, 34 Grand Street." Six days later a reply was 
 received from a man in a nearby town, and McCaim was 
 found at work in a factory there. 
 
 More than upon any other method the Na- 
 tional Desertion Bureau depends on the publi- 
 cation of pictures and short newspaper para- 
 graphs. 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 at- 
 tracts 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 an- 
 
 85 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 other, live closely together, follow In the main 
 only a few trades, and read only a limited num- 
 ber of foreign-language newspapers. Whether 
 anything like the same results could be obtained 
 by the same methods applied to deserting hus- 
 bands 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 in- 
 formed of the doings of the others. Such a 
 piece of work calls for a common body of expe- 
 rience and technique among the workers con- 
 cerned, amounting almost to an unwritten under- 
 
 86 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 standing as to how the work should be done. 
 Nothing makes more fascinating reading than 
 the record of a quick, touch-and-go investiga- 
 tion, 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 in- 
 stances, however, where no such common under- 
 standing exists, and where the home-town agency 
 has to work through people with little social 
 training or with training of a type which defi- 
 nitely unfits them properly to approach the de- 
 serting 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 
 
 87 
 
i 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 more it is realized that money and time spent 
 in going to nearby cities to do one's own investi- 
 gating is well spent. There used to be a feeling 
 on the part of the kindred society whose terri- 
 tory was thus invaded that this action argued 
 lack of confidence in its work; but as the im- 
 portance 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 knowl- 
 edge 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 un- 
 familiarity with the place, as well as toward dis- 
 pelling any sense of injury in the mind of a pro- 
 fessional 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 
 
 88 
 
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 
 
 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 construc- 
 tion 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 satis- 
 
 89 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 factory 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. Sev- 
 eral 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 clever- 
 ness on our part, but good work by the other 
 society.) " 
 
 90 
 
FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGA- 
 TION 
 
 TT 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 dis- 
 ability. This crisis is the period of the first 
 desertion. "If we could learn what preceded 
 and what immediately followed the first deser- 
 tion, 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 
 
 91 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 both interesting and significant, but the circum- 
 stances 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 prac- 
 tice of recording carefully what led up to a 
 chronic deserter's last desertion before his family 
 applied, and of passing over his earlier deser- 
 tions 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 in- 
 / fluences 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 
 knp:^ what first drew them together, as well as 
 whal/s^forced them apart," said a thoughtful dis- 
 trict secretary. The notorious unhappiness of 
 "forced marriages" leads case workers to scruti- 
 
 92 
 
FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION 
 
 nize 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 preg- 
 nancy 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 mar- 
 riage and that of the first child's birth. All 
 these women were hard working; several of 
 good standing in the neighborhood and the moth- 
 ers of large families of children." This group of 
 homes represents by no means an unstable seg- 
 ment of the community, since in most instances 
 the couples had lived together in reasonable har- 
 mony up to the time of the man's death. But 
 do the 96 represent forced marriages as ordi- 
 narily thought of by the social worker? The 
 study just quoted has no facts bearing upon 
 
 93 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 this point. The likeHhood is that a large num- 
 ber 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 mar- 
 riages 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 
 
 94 
 
FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION 
 
 one in five, had separated before the two-year 
 period was over.* 
 
 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 Uving apart from her husband, who was 
 contributing a small amount regularly. The income was 
 inadequate and it was decided to push the matter further. 
 Efiforts 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 assist- 
 ance 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 rnarry, a court marriage was 
 brought about; the man made his payments promptly 
 and observed the other conditions of his probation faith- 
 fully. The woman, however, was indifferent to any efforts 
 to bring about a reconciliation. It was finally discovered 
 
 * Bowen, Louise de K.: A Study of Bastardy Cases. 
 Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 19 14. 
 
 7 95 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 that she was immoral. The case culminated in the secur- 
 ing 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 reconcihng, after a 
 desertion, a couple whose marriage had been of the forced 
 description. The probation department arranged for the 
 couple to Uve 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 orig- 
 inally obtained for him by the probation officer, his 
 salary had been increased, the family had grown in num- 
 ber 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 mar- 
 riage 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 
 
 96 
 
FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION 
 
 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 in- 
 clination 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 19 17 illustrate this 
 point. The wreckage of these marriages is 
 
 97 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 in- 
 difference and confusion on this point is prob- 
 ably 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 mar- 
 riage 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 mar- 
 riage 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 wit- 
 nesses. A transcript of the record will usually 
 be furnished by the registrar of vital statistics 
 
 98 
 
FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION 
 
 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 im- 
 migrant deserters, who trust to our happy-go- 
 lucky methods for protection against a prosecu- 
 tion 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 
 
 99 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 famiUes on 
 his wages, he would Hke to provide for his second wife 
 through "the Charity." 
 
 A district secretary who has worked for many 
 years with Italians is authority for the state- 
 ment that marriages in Italy are always regis- 
 tered 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 cus- 
 tomarily registered with the consul for trans- 
 mission to the home town in Italy." 
 
 In some countries of Latin America great con- 
 fusion may be caused by the fact that a mar- 
 riage performed in church is not legal in the eyes 
 of the state unless a second ceremony is gone 
 through before the civil authorities. A Guate- 
 malan woman, deserted in this country, had no 
 recourse in law because she had had only the 
 church ceremony in her country. Her claim to 
 
 lOO 
 
FURTHER ITEMS IN THE irW^StlGATlOlS^ * 
 
 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 mar- 
 riage 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 an- 
 other 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. Publica- 
 tion in these cases takes place in local news- 
 papers 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 
 
 lOI 
 
RROKEN HOMES 
 
 as soon as any action for divorce is started by a 
 man with a Jewish name against a wife whose 
 "address is unknown."* 
 
 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 "neigh- 
 borhood references" more than in the ordinary 
 case. Social workers have become very wary, 
 of course, of much inquiry among present neigh- 
 bors; 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 inter- 
 est or sympathy, or both, that it is easier than 
 in some other types of cases to secure informa- 
 tion from neighbors, tradesmen, and so on, with- 
 out augmenting neighborhood gossip. 
 
 * It is the policy of the Bureau, when such a case is dis- 
 covered, 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. 
 
 102 
 
FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION 
 
 Probably the most difficult part of the neces- 
 sary 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.* 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. ^A^ 
 
 The securing of an adequate picture ^B^ihe 
 sex life of the couple may have to be delegated, 
 however, to some volunteer whose own sex, pro-, 
 fession, 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 
 
 * See p. 37 sq. 
 
 103 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 woman of the tenements often adopts toward her un- 
 married 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 ^ssible to call upon the socially-minded physician 
 or clergyman for help along this Une."* 
 
 To sum up, the interviews with the family 
 and the supplementary visits and letters of in- 
 yquijinhould furnish the social worker if possible 
 
 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 contrib- 
 uted 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 
 
 * J. C. Colcord in The Annals of the American Academy 
 of Political and Social Science, May, 191 8, p. 97. 
 
 104 
 
FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION 
 
 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 informa- 
 tion 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. 
 
 105 
 
VI 
 
 THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 A S 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.* 
 
 On questions of investigation there is closer 
 agreement among social workers than on ques- 
 tions 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 
 
 * The Questionnaire on the Deserted Family (see p. 395 
 sq. of Richmond's Social Diagnosis) has already been men- 
 tioned 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. 
 
 106 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 prac- 
 tising 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 compo- 
 site 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 
 
 107 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 resource- 
 ful 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 cir- 
 cumstances, 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. Com- 
 mitment may have to be planned, and the 
 mother's consent won, to save the children from 
 
 io8 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 considera- 
 tion, however, ought to be what is going, in j ^y 
 the long run, to be best for the children con- 
 cerned. 
 
 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 com-/ 
 prehensively for the future. There is always the 
 chance, however, that, until the man's death is 
 established, he may tiirn 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 
 
 109 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 authori- 
 \ties. 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.* The wisdom of advising such a di- 
 vorce, however, should receive careful individual 
 consideration, particularly in relation to the re- 
 ligious 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 
 
 * The state of New York is an exception, as it grants 
 only limited divorce for desertion. 
 
 IIO 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 meas- 
 ures have most often to be used. 
 
 A good example of the "justifiable deserter" is found 
 in the story of Williams.* This man, when home condi- 
 tions 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 quarrel- 
 some and dictatorial disposition makes her impossible 
 to live with. She had haled him so many times into 
 
 * See p. 57. 
 8 III 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 look- 
 ing toward reconciliation. The "justifiable de- 
 serter" 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 alco- 
 holic 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 al- 
 lowed to see him. The steward claimed, probably cor- 
 rectly, 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 imme- 
 diately 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 under- 
 stand his wife was ill, not only from alcoholism but also 
 
 112 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 sup- 
 port, 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 dijSicult for 
 her to have control; that, moreover, if she were suffer- 
 ing also from a blood condition, this should have treat- 
 ment. 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 
 
 113 
 
v/ 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 atten- 
 tion 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 wilUng to do it, and visitor felt 
 he really was wiUing 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 in- 
 voked. Procedure in this direction differs so 
 much in different communities that only gen- 
 eral 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 
 
 114 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 prac- 
 tice 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. Some- 
 times the social worker is permitted to talk 
 the matter over with the judge personally, some- 
 times with the probation officer, clerk or other 
 court official. Sometimes a written report is 
 required, to be attached to the probation of- 
 ficer's report. Occasionally the social worker 
 gets no chance to be heard unless he is present 
 
 115 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 to testify in open court. In the last two con- 
 tingencies, care must be taken to safeguard in- 
 formation given in confidence, even by the de- 
 serter. 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 gov- 
 erned by local conditions. A very important 
 part of co-operation in any community is to 
 see that this channel is kept free from obstruc- 
 tion. 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: 
 
 Ii6 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 1. In rare instances, to dismiss the complaint alto- 
 gether. 
 
 2. To remand for a later hearing. 
 
 3. To induce the woman to drop her complaint and 
 give the man another chance.* 
 
 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 extra- 
 dition between states has to be acted upon by 
 the governors of the states, it is unusual (though 
 
 * See p. 132 sq. concerning court reconciliations. 
 
 117 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 not impossible*) to secure extradition for a mis- 
 demeanor. 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 gen- 
 erally 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 indict- 
 ment 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 
 
 ♦ See Baldwin, Wm. H.: "The Most Effective Methods 
 of Dealing with Cases of Desertion and Non-support," 
 Journal American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminol- 
 ogy, November, 19 17. 
 
 118 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 im- 
 possible, as no treaties exist even with con- 
 tiguous countries like Canada and Mexico.* By 
 special arrangement with the Canadian authori- 
 ties, states which touch the Canadian border can 
 sometimes obtain the person of a deserter with- 
 out actual extradition. Information is sub- 
 mitted 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 noti- 
 fied, and an officer with a warrant meets the 
 Canadian officer and the prisoner at the boun- 
 dary, 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 sen- ' 
 tence for men of this type. "We have found a 
 
 * See p. 169 sq. 
 119 
 
/ 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 shortened penitentiary sentence, with release on 
 probation, very successful in a number of in- 
 stances." "Sometimes the probation has been 
 more effective by its being a sort of double pro- 
 bation; that is, having the case pending in 
 juvenile court as well as municipal or district 
 court. The fear of having his children per- 
 /manently 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 pro- 
 bation 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 last- 
 ing results. Probation officers and other social 
 workers agree, however, that for certain deserters 
 
 120 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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, osten- 
 sibly 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 hfe 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 suc- 
 ceeded in having him sent to state prison for an indeter- 
 minate 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 
 
 121 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 judi- 
 cious encouragement over a few hard spots, has become 
 a good family man and a regular provider. 
 
 The particular problem involved in the treat- 
 ment of the family during the trial and im- 
 r prisonment of the deserter is that of encouraging 
 the woman to stick to her guns. If she with- 
 draws 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 en- 
 couraged in every way to let her husband serve 
 
 122 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 in- 
 terest and our hope that no step will be taken 
 without a consultation. If it is hoped or ex- 
 pected that the man will return to his home 
 after imprisonment, he should be earnestly cul- 
 tivated 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 
 
 123 
 
li 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 re- 
 leased. If imprisonment or "stay-away proba- 
 tion" 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* 
 should be considered at this point. If, on the 
 other hand, the man evinces eagerness to return 
 home and support his family, he comes auto- 
 matically (though belatedly) into the class to be 
 considered in the next chapter. 
 
 * See p. 127. 
 
 J«4 
 
VII 
 
 THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (Con- 
 tinued) 
 
 nnHERE 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*8 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 prob- 
 ably operated to bring about the rupture in ^ 
 family relations? If there have been other de- 
 
 125 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 sertions 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 incom- 
 patibility? Is the wife willing to have him re- 
 turn? 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 tne 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 inter- 
 vention is usually necessary here, if it has not 
 
 126 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 ali*eady 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.* The wife should be armed with a war- 
 rant 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 forti- 
 fied by liquor he is likely to force his entrance 
 into the home and perhaps do harm. The pro- 
 tection 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 
 *See p. 179 regarding equity powers of the courts. 
 9 127 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 impossible by preventing the remarriage of either 
 party. Proceedings for a legal separation can- 
 not 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 rela- 
 tions but must go to a civil court. This is usually 
 more expensive and less satisfactory.* 
 
 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 pay- 
 ments 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 
 
 * Massachusetts social workers succeeded in 19 17 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. 
 
 128 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 gentry. Even if we have some doubt that the 
 wife's protestations of fear or aversion are gen- 
 uine, 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 exam- 
 ined 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 ques- 
 tions of extradition. When the whereabouts of 
 a deserter of this type has been discovered in 
 another city a safe distance away, it may be 
 
 129 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 undesir- 
 able 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 hus- 
 band back have been discussed earlier.* Unfor- 
 tunately, 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 at- 
 tempts 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 hus- 
 band'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 
 
 * See p. 13 sq. 
 130 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 might have resulted in their refusing to take 
 back their husbands. . . . Our records seem 
 to show that inadequate rehef , 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 hus- 
 band 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 confine- 
 ment. 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 
 
 131 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 reconcilia- 
 tion 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 super- 
 vision 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 dress- 
 ings. 
 
 132 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 "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 prob- 
 lem except what can be gained from the two people con- 
 cerned, 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 reconcilia- 
 tions. With the best will in the world, the people who 
 attempt this deUcate 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 indi- 
 viduals 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 Uve in harmony, each of which makes a per- 
 manent 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."* 
 
 A probation officer writes: "Superficial reconciliations 
 invariably result unsatisfactorily. In one case a recon- 
 
 * Colcord, J. C: Article on "Desertion and Non-sup- 
 port." Annals of the American Academy of Political and 
 Social Science, May, 1918, p. 95. 
 
 133 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 ciliation 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 pro- 
 bation 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 car- 
 ried 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 insti- 
 tution 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 pro- 
 bation 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 proba- 
 tion department to determine her mentality disclosed 
 her to be feeble-minded; h\vr she was committed to a 
 custodial institution for fee n '-miaded women of child- 
 ring age. The man was d to a state prison." 
 
 134 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 ex- 
 pected. One thousand and two couples who 
 were reconciled in court during the year 19 16 
 were visited from six to eighteen months later. 
 
 135 
 
 4 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 Three hundred and ten had separated or had 
 had further differences which brought them to 
 court; Sj 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 happi- 
 ness, as the report somewhat drily states.* 
 
 It should be said that many of these families 
 were probably under the supervision of a pro- 
 bation officer for a longer or shorter period after 
 the reconciliation took place. There is no state- 
 ment 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 rec- 
 onciliation. 
 
 The practice of the Desertion Bureau main- 
 tained by the New York Association for Im- 
 proving 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 
 * Philadelphia Municipal Court, Report for 19 16, p. 64. 
 
 136 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 to the man," its secretary remarked. The same 
 probation department which furnished the stories 
 of hasty and unsuccessful reconciHations,* con- 
 tributes this remarkable account of the restora- 
 tion of a family through slow and careful char- 
 acter 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 char- 
 acter. 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 em- 
 ployer efforts were made toward a reconciliation. The 
 man was gradually led away from his old harmful pur- 
 suits and tendencies, these being replaced by wholesome 
 activities. He was induced to join a fraternal organiza- 
 tion, 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. 
 
 * See p. 133. 
 
 137 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 Very many processes are indicated in such a 
 story. To bring about the conviction of wrong- 
 doing, to awaken desire and supply an incen- 
 tive, to keep the hope of attainment alive, to 
 encourage weakened nerves in a new and per- 
 sistent 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 
 
 138 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 rela- 
 tions 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 
 
 139 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 fallen behind.* 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 counter- 
 act 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 
 
 * 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." 
 
 140 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 pos- 
 sible, 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 reconcihation 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 per- 
 suading 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 suc- 
 
 141 
 
1^ 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 cess 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 pro- 
 ceeds (with a lavish expenditure of time, as indi- 
 cated 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 rela- 
 tives 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 
 
 142 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 send- 
 ing money regularly to the wife, who still obdu- 
 rately 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 
 
 10 143 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 
 
 144 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 hfe; 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 Nelhe [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. A ndrews: 
 
 I received your long letter this morning and was very 
 glad to hear all the details of camp Hfe. 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. 
 
 145 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 satis- 
 factory 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 
 
 146 
 
THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 
 
 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 every- 
 body, 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 N 
 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 earn- 
 ing $50 a week in a shop where he had worked for eigh- 
 teen 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 
 
 147 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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. Jlf ., nor has his wife been en- 
 couraged 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. 
 
 148 
 
VIII 
 
 THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 
 
 MANY of the case workers consulted in gath- 
 ering 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 symp- 
 tom 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.* Indeed, in 
 Massachusetts, the law under which deserters 
 
 * 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. 
 
 149 
 
)^ 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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."* 
 
 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 
 
 * Proceedings of the New York State Conference of 
 Charities and Correction, 1910, p. 76. 
 
 150 
 
THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 
 
 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 com- 
 mon 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 in- 
 temperate and industrially inefficient as com- 
 pared 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 pa- 
 rental 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 
 
 151 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 describe the stay-at-home than the wanderer. 
 However, one social worker (non-medical) says 
 "a mental twist more often enters into the prob- 
 lem 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 work- 
 ers 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 justifica- 
 
 ^ tion than the non-supporter," says an observer of 
 
 long experience. Studies which have been made 
 
 of the relative capacity of the wives of deserters 
 
 152 
 
THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 
 
 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 im- 
 possibility 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 distinc- 
 tion is taken into account. 
 
 The influence of ill-kept homes in the manu- 
 facture of non-supporting husbands has been 
 widely recognized. 
 
 A drunkard's daughter, who had never known a de- 
 cent 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 manage- 
 ment. 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. 
 
 153 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 them- 
 selves," advised a wise neighbor. " If your hus- 
 band 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.''* 
 
 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 ac- 
 ceptance 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 
 
 * Loane, M.: The Queen's Poor, p. 102. London, 
 Edward Arnold, 1905. 
 
 154 
 
THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 
 
 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 satis- 
 fied 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 hus- 
 band 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 Buff^alo 
 
 155 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 Charity Organization Society in 191 7, 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 i, 191 9. Grounds for hope 
 that it may be are found in the fact that some 
 remarkable results have been obtained by mov- 
 ing alcoholic non -supporters and their families 
 from "wet" into "dry" territory. 
 J 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 fre- 
 quently 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 
 
 156 
 
THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 
 
 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, al- 
 though 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* 
 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 
 
 * Solenberger, Alice VVillard : One Thousand Homeless 
 Men, p. 22. New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 191 1. 
 
 157 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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,* 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 encour- 
 aged 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 
 
 * For a consideration of possible lines of treatment for 
 the non-supporter and his family, the reader is referred to 
 Chapter VH, where is discussed the treatment of the de- 
 serter who is willing to return. 
 
 158 
 
THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 
 
 sufficient money to re-establish the home. The arrange- 
 ment 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 
 m"ght 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-estab- 
 lished, 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 in- 
 terested. 
 
 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 : 
 
 " 159 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 "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 youVe 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 hus- 
 band wants a man now at his garage, to clean automo- 
 biles. 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.* 
 
 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 
 
 * Behind the Service Flag, pamphlet ARC 211, Amer- 
 ican Red Cross, Department of Civilian Relief. 
 
 160 
 
 
THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 
 
 not have to be searched for. Familiarity cer- 
 tainly 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 dis- 
 trict secretary who had thus given a man up 
 had the experience of seeing him transformed 
 into a steady worker after a few months of in- 
 tensive effort by a first-year student in a school 
 of social science, whose only equipment for the 
 job was personality and enthusiasm. So re- 
 markable 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 
 
 i6i 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 direc- 
 tions 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 un- 
 moved; then said, "Very well, if you want to know what 
 would make me stop drinking, I'll tell you. If 1 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." 
 
 162 
 
THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 
 
 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. 
 
 163 
 
IX 
 
 NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREAT- 
 MENT 
 
 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 mean- 
 ing 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 efEciency of the courts, many 
 
 164 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 of which are affiliated with or maintained by the 
 large family work societies. 
 
 1. Measures for the Discovery, Extradition or De- 
 portation of the Deserter. — The nation-wide regis- 
 tration 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 regis- 
 tration as it was carried on in Germany before 
 the war; no system which meant such cumber- 
 some machinery or so much interference with 
 the freedom of the individual ought to be advo- 
 cated for a moment if it were solely for the pur- 
 pose 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 
 
 165 
 
A 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 rigor of the European police system. But 
 though we can advocate no system of manhood 
 registration, we can avail ourselves of the inci- 
 dental benefits of any that may be in force. 
 
 The Federal Employment Service offers a 
 promising means of help in discovering the move- 
 ments 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 recog- 
 nized 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 con- 
 structively with vagrants and homeless men. 
 Little track can be kept not only of the indi- 
 vidual wanderer but of the ebb and flow of the 
 tides of "casual labor" without some system of 
 
 i66 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 this sort. If employment bureaus were required 
 to forward to a central registry the names and 
 some identifying particulars of every non-resi- 
 dent 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 im- 
 provements 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 atmos- 
 phere of indifference and despair of accomplish- 
 ing 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 
 
 167 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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. 
 jK< The pernicious system by which the wife is 
 f 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 afilidavit 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 
 
 1 68 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 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,* 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, 19 16. It was re- 
 ferred 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 
 
 * Now changed to The National Conference of Social 
 Work. 
 
 169 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 in Kansas City in May, 191 8, sent urgent repre- 
 sentations to the Senate Committee, which it is 
 hoped may result in ratification after the pres- 
 sure of war-time legislation is relaxed. 
 
 We should not stop when reciprocal extradi- 
 tion 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 immi- 
 gration laws. In 19 1 2 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 
 
 170 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 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.* 
 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 felonv or other crime or misde- 
 meanor 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 
 
 * Mption, J. R.: Wife and Family Desertion: Emigra- 
 tion as a Contributory Cause. Glasgow Parish Council, 
 1912. 
 
 171 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 ridicu- 
 lously inadequate amounts that unwilling hus- 
 bands 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 in- 
 terested was permitted to make a complaint on produc- 
 ing a doctor's 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. 
 
 172 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 A bulletin issued by the Seybert Institution 
 of Philadelphia gives a very interesting set of 
 diagrams showing the relation (or lack of rela- 
 tion) between the amount of man's income, size 
 of family, and the court order issued in the 
 Philadelphia Municipal Court.* 
 
 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 fac- 
 tory. Can earn $20 with no overtime. Has been send- 
 ing 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 Uve 
 together anyway. Woman says she is unable to work — is 
 ill. When man stated he was giving $10 great consterna- 
 tion seemed to take hold of the entire court force. He 
 
 * 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 Insti- 
 tution, Philadelphia, 19 18. 
 
 173 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 did not say he couldn't pay $io; 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 
 hing 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 
 
 174 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 support is almost sure to understate his earn- 
 ings, 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. 
 
 ^2 175 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 Whether the man under court order is on 
 probation or not, the cessation of payments 
 should automatically reopen the case. At pres- 
 ent, in most courts, the order goes by default 
 until the wife comes in to make another charge. 
 This, through discouragement or fear of a beat- 
 ing 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 circum- 
 stances are such that no reconciliation is con- 
 templated. 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. 
 
 176 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 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, repre- 
 senting their earnings, to be turned over to their 
 families. 
 
 In an interesting paper in the Survey for 
 November 20, 1909, entitled "Making the De- 
 serter 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 rela- 
 tions has gained such headway that no word 
 needs to be said here in its favor. In communi- 
 ties 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. 
 
 177 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 pur- 
 pose 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."* 
 
 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 
 
 * Hoffman, Charles W. : The Domestic Relations Court 
 and Divorce, The Delinquent, February, 191 7. 
 
 178 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 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 bas- 
 tardy 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 evi- 
 dence 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 amend- 
 ment now pending in New York is a model for 
 this sort of legislation. It is in part as follows: 
 
 179 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 if 
 
 '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, guar- 
 dianship and disposition of delinquent, neglected or de- 
 pendent minors, and for the punishment and correction 
 of adults responsible for or contributing to such delin- 
 quency, neglect or dependency, and to compel the sup- 
 port of a wife, child or poor relative by persons legally 
 chargeable therewith who abandon or neglect to support 
 any of them."* 
 
 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 iso 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 
 
 * For a fuller discussion of equity powers see an article 
 by Judge C. F. Collins in the Legal Aid Review for Janu- 
 ary, 1919. 
 
 180 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 the domestic relations courts in the use of phy- 
 sicians and psychiatrists. The best examples of 
 both these courts have, however, facilities for 
 the making of physical examinations and men-^ 
 tal tests, where necessary, before adjudication. 
 Judge Hoffman says that the fact that so many 
 cases in courts of domestic relations disclose ab- 
 normal or perverted sex habits, makes important 
 the services of a psychiatrist accustomed to 
 diagnosing these conditions.* 
 
 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, 
 
 * Hoffman, Charles W. : Domestic Relations Courts 
 and Divorce. The Delinquent^ February, 1917. 
 
 181 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 estab- 
 lished by law, is any more effective than the 
 people who run it; and the usefulness of the 
 domestic relations court in any community de- 
 pends 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 
 
 182 
 
NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 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 in- 
 vestigations to be presented to the judge before 
 the trial. 
 
 In training and in equipment for the job, pro- 
 bation officers should be the equals of case work- 
 ers in private agencies. Examinations for pro- 
 bation 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 stand- 
 ards 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 
 
 183 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 ought to be exactly like the relation of the med- 
 ical 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. 
 
 184 
 
NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREAT- 
 MENT 
 
 AT this time of writing it is too soon after 
 •^^^ the signing of the armistice to make predic- 
 tions as to what the Great War may do to mar- 
 riage. Whether desertion and divorce will in- 
 crease 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 bal- 
 ance 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 
 
 185 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 
 V 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 enforce- 
 / ment form a whole subject in themselves which 
 is now receiving careful study, the results of 
 which should be available shortly.* This fact 
 precludes any discussion of the subject here, 
 though the relation of our marriage laws to 
 marital discord is so obvious that some men- 
 tion of the matter is necessary. 
 
 * See, for example, American Marriage Laws in their 
 Social Aspects — a preliminary study by the Russell Sage 
 Foundation, June, 1919. 
 
 ( 186 
 
NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 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 knowl- 
 edge. 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 meas- 
 ures 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 dan- 
 ger signals? One case worker answers this ques- 
 tion sententiously : "Any influences which tend 
 to destroy family solidarity are possible signs of 
 
 187 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 desertion." Another writes: "We have some- 
 times found it possible to recognize a ' pre-deser- 
 tion 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 "con- 
 tributory factors " might in certain combinations 
 be decided danger signals of impending deser- 
 tion. 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 
 
 i88 
 
NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT 
 couple were Irish; the man had never deserted 
 before. 
 
 (i) 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 unreUable. 
 
 (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 inter- 
 mittently were at that time thinking enviously 
 of munition factory wages; and that these 
 hardly constituted danger signals. The cumula- 
 tive effect of all five items cannot, however, be 
 denied. 
 
 Another statement, similarly obtained, con- 
 
 189 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 cerns 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. 
 
 (i) Man earns $20 a week but refuses to start house- 
 keeping 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 chil- 
 dren so that she might go to work. 
 
 (5) It transpires that she hved with him before mar- 
 riage, 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 in- 
 evitable it can be prepared for in advance, the 
 
 190 
 
NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 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 symp- 
 toms, 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 Im- 
 proving 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 ro- 
 mance of the first attraction has vanished, while 
 the steady force of conjugal affection which 
 should smooth their path through the years 
 
 191 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 be- 
 gins again to twitch for the road; or 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 misunderstand- 
 ings 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* 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 sel- 
 dom brought to the attention of social agencies, 
 as it is usually the presence of children in the 
 family and the consequent burden upon the 
 
 * Brandt, Lilian: 574 Deserters and their Families, p. 
 23. Charity Organization Society of New York, 1905. 
 
 192 
 
NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 wife which make such agencies acquainted w^ith 
 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 matri- 
 monial situations, and without any court record 
 being made. The Department of Public Chari- 
 ties of New York City maintains a similar bureau 
 which is, however, so closely connected with the 
 court that its clients make little distinction be- 
 tween them. 
 
 In addition to such conscious efforts to reach 
 out after marital tangles in the pre-court stage, 
 13 193 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 there has recently been an interesting though 
 accidental development in the city of Cleveland. 
 During the thrift campaign of 1918, several sav- 
 ings 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 experi- 
 mental stage but it has had an increasing clientele 
 so far. One thing that has astonished its man- 
 agement — 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 ex- 
 tended, and why other agencies than banks (in- 
 surance companies, for example) might not be 
 eager thus to serve their customers. This opens 
 a new field for the home economist, but inci- 
 dentally it would appear that, in order to func- 
 
 194 
 
NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 tion successfully, such bureaus would need to 
 have access to the services of agencies employing 
 highly skilled social case workers. It is conceiv- 
 able 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 excel- 
 lent "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 explana- 
 tion. Such a consultation service as that sug- 
 gested 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 de- 
 pendent — not with the family broken and 
 
 195 
 
/ 
 
 BROKEN HOMES 
 
 estranged only, but with the one whose bonds, 
 7'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 de- 
 pendency? 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 in- 
 feriority. Here is a valuable lesson in right 
 publicity. 
 
 A bureau of family advice such as has been sug- 
 gested should be under unimpeachable auspices 
 from the point of view of medicine and psychi- 
 atry; 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 enter- 
 prise, in which courts and social agencies might 
 be equally interested, so much the better. Its 
 
 196 
 
NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 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 mod- 
 ern stress, for a safe outlet and a chance to dis- 
 cuss 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 
 
 197 
 
BROKEN HOMES 
 
 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 pres- 
 ent low concepts of marriage, should be vigorously 
 combatted by such an organization. Religious 
 instruction would be, of course, beyond its 
 
 198 
 
NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT 
 
 scope ; but it should be able to work sympathet- 
 ically with all creeds, supplementing their teach- 
 ings 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 de- 
 pendency 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 sug- 
 gestions herein contained find use in that pro- 
 gram, the labor of compiling them will have 
 been indeed well spent. 
 
 199 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adolph R. : case story of, 69-70, 
 
 83 
 Age: relation of differences in, 27 
 
 Agencies: N. Y. Charity Organi- 
 zation Society, 44; National 
 Desertion Bureau, 6s, 69, 7i, 
 10 1 ; United Hebrew Charities, 
 71; co-operative methods, 72- 
 78, 84, 86-90; opinions on 
 methods of arrest, 77, 78; 
 N. Y. Association for Improv- 
 ing Condition of the Poor, 136; 
 social problems and consulta- 
 tion bureaus. 1 95-199 
 
 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 Rus- 
 sell Sage Foundation, 186 
 
 Apparent desertions: illustrated, 
 8.9 
 
 Baldwin, Wm. H., 169, 177 
 
 Bastardy Cases, A Study of. 
 Louise deK. Bowen, 95 
 
 Bastardy, see Forced marriages 
 
 Behind the Service Flag, Red 
 Cross pamphlet, 160 
 
 Bigamy: and common law mar- 
 riages, 98; immigrant deserters, 
 99 
 
 Bosanquet, Helen, 13 
 
 Bowen, Louise deK., 95 
 
 Brand, Harvey: case atory of, 
 122 
 
 Brandt, Lilian, 26, 27, 192 
 
 Breed, Mary, 61, 150 
 
 Buffalo Charity Organization So- 
 ciety: non-support records, 156 
 
 Bureaus: National Desertion Bu- 
 reau, 65, 69, loi; for consul- 
 tation, 193-199; Court of 
 Domestic Relations, Chicago, 
 193; Department of Public 
 Charities, New York, 193; 
 Children's Bureau, 197; im- 
 portance of educational, 198- 
 199- See also Agencies 
 
 Byington, Margaret F., la 
 
 Canada: extradition treaties 
 sought, 119, 169 
 
 Carstens, C. C, 68 
 
 Case illustrations: of apparent 
 desertion, 8; mental deficiency, 
 24; reconciliation through edu- 
 cation, 30; incompatibility and 
 the "other woman," 40; inter- 
 viewing 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 mar- 
 riage, 95; "American" mar- 
 riages, 99; justifiable desertion, 
 III, 112-114; antagonism, 
 1 1 1- 1 1 2 ; prison sentences help- 
 ful, 121, 122; adequate relief 
 rids wife of chronic deserter, 
 131; adjustment impossible, 
 134; real affection a basis of 
 
 201 
 
INDEX 
 
 reconciliation, 13s; rehabilita- 
 tion 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; in- 
 adequate court orders, 172, 
 173 
 
 Case work, see Social workers 
 
 Causal factors: analysis of study, 
 10, is; motives and theories, 
 17-49; rationalization dis- 
 cussed, 17-22; summary of 
 statistics, 21-22, 26-27, 45; 
 feeble-mindedness, 24-25; 
 training and self-control, 25- 
 26; nationality, 26-27; re- 
 ligion, 27; age, 27; environ- 
 ment, 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 ; tem- 
 peramental 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 in- 
 terpretation of , 99- 1 00. See also 
 Collusion 
 
 Chicago Court of Domestic Re- 
 lations, bureau for marital 
 advice, 193 
 
 Chicago Juvenile Protective As- 
 sociation: study of forced mar- 
 riages by, 94-95 
 
 Children's Bureau, 197 
 
 Closing the case: extended treat- 
 ment 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 meas- 
 ures, 73-80 
 
 Common law marriages: legal 
 protection under, 29; confusion 
 of state laws, 98 
 
 Community ideals, see Standards 
 
 Companions: influence, and wan- 
 derlust, 47-48; aid in finding 
 deserters, 77, 80 
 
 Co-operation of agencies, 68-78, 
 84, 86-90; suggested methods 
 01 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 emigra- 
 tion, report on, 170; deporta- 
 tion laws, 171; court orders to 
 pay, Seybert Institution report 
 on, 172-177; special courts for 
 juvenile delinquents, 177, 178, 
 179; Family Court of Cincin- 
 nati, 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 de- 
 serters, 114-117; extradition, 
 117-119; probation, 1 19-124; 
 warrant served by wife, 127; 
 effecting reconciliations, 132- 
 140; domestic relation courts 
 effect reconciliations, 132; vol- 
 unteers, 139-140; inadequacy 
 of orders, 172-177; for juvenile 
 delinquents, 178, 181; domestic 
 relations, 179-182, 193 
 
 202 
 
INDEX 
 
 Department of Public Charities, 
 New York City, bureau of 
 domestic relations, i93 
 
 Deserters and their Families, S74- 
 Lilian Brandt, 192 
 
 Desertion and Non-Support in 
 Family Case Work. Joanna 
 C. Colcord, 61, 104, 133 
 
 Detectives: methods objection- 
 able, 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-sup- 
 port laws, 177 
 
 Divorce: relation to desertion, 
 7, 8; not considered, 16; ad- 
 ministration of laws, and re- 
 spect for, 46; by publication, 
 loi; clearing bureau for, loi- 
 102; for long continued deser- 
 tion, no; legal separation to 
 protect wife, 127; bureaus 
 might prevent, 193-199 
 
 Domestic relations courts: to 
 combine with juvenile, 178, 
 179; Family Court of Cincin- 
 nati, 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-con- 
 trol , 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 train- 
 ing and delinquency, 26; back- 
 ground for failures, 29-30; de- 
 structive forces, 46; suggestions 
 for case workers, 63; Atten- 
 dance Department traces de- 
 serters, 73; non-support and 
 inefficiency eliminated by, 153; 
 propaganda, 198 
 
 Ellis, Havelock, 39 
 
 Environment: and immigration, 
 27-28; neighborhood stan- 
 dards, 46, 102 
 
 Equity powers, of domestic re- 
 lations 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 Educa- 
 tional Institution. The. Willy- 
 stine 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, 19S-199 
 
 Family, The. Helen Bosanquet, 
 13 
 
 Fear of bodily harm from dan- 
 gerous deserters, 128-129 
 
 Federal Employment Service, 166 
 
 Finding deserters, 65-90; Na- 
 tional Desertion Bureau, 65, 
 69, 71; urgency of finding the 
 
 203 
 
INDEX 
 
 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; publica- 
 tions, 83, 84, 8s; bulletin 
 boards, 84; employment agen- 
 cies, 84; agency co-operation, 
 86-90 
 
 First desertions: temporary char- 
 acter of, 8; medical-social work 
 a preventive, 9; accident rec- 
 ords 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 illustra- 
 tions, 95-96 
 
 Forel, August, 39 
 
 Francis, Mrs.: case story of, 131 
 
 Frost, Robert, 14 
 
 Gambling : effect upon character, 
 43; relation to non-support, 
 iS6 
 
 Glasgow Parish Council, report 
 on dependency, 170-17 1 
 
 Goodsell, Willystine, 11 
 
 Gorokhoff, Andreas: case story 
 of, 121 
 
 Gray, Aleck: case story of, i6i- 
 163 
 
 Hart, Bernard, 20 
 
 Healy, Dr. William, 196 
 
 Heredity: psychopathic person- 
 ality, 24; feeble-mind edness, 
 25; racial differences, 26-28 
 
 Hoffman, Charles W., 178, 181 
 
 Illustrations, see Case illustrations 
 
 Immorality, see Sex factors 
 
 Inadequate relief: legal separa- 
 tion, 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: impor- 
 tance of, 55-57. 105 ; case 
 story, 57-61 
 
 Italy: marriage registration in, 
 100 
 
 Judge Baker Foundation, of 
 Boston, 196 
 
 Justifiable deserters: and alco- 
 holism, 42; case illustration, 
 S7-6i, III; procedure with, 
 112 
 
 Justification: thirst for expe- 
 rience, 9, 19; process of ration- 
 alization, 20; venereal disease 
 and separation, 41; alcohol, 
 and "justifiable deserters," 42; 
 Williams case illustrates, 57- 
 61, III; and the non-supporter, 
 152-154 
 
 204 
 
INDEX 
 
 Juvenile courts: movement for 
 special, 177. 178; Juvenile 
 Court Act, 178; combine with 
 domestic relation courts, 178; 
 Family Court of Cincinnati, 
 178; facilities, i8i 
 
 Laflin, Mrs.: case story of, IS5 
 
 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, loi; Italian, 100; divorce 
 for permanent desertion, no; 
 for justifiable deserters, iii- 
 112; court action for persistent 
 deserters, 114-117; extradi- 
 tion, 117-119, 129; probation, 
 120-124; legeJ facilities to pro- 
 mote efficiency, 164-184; serv- 
 ing 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, 
 I9S 
 
 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 rea- 
 sons for, 35 
 
 Marriage: spiritual values of, 
 II, 12, 29; homelier elements 
 in, 13-15; wrong bases of, 28; 
 common law unions. 29; dis- 
 paragement of ideals con- 
 demned, 45-46. 198; verifica- 
 tion, 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 deser- 
 tion," 34-35; sex incompatibil- 
 ity, 37-39; bureaus of advice 
 recommended, 193-196. See 
 also Psychology 
 
 Mellor, Joseph: case story of, in 
 
 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 influ- 
 ence, 22, 42 
 
 Nationality : statistical facts 
 about difference in, 26-27, 44- 
 45; racial attitude, and per- 
 centages of deseiters, 44-45 ; 
 case problem, 49; Jewish de- 
 sertion bureau, 65, 69, 71, loi- 
 102 
 
 National Conference of Jewish 
 Charities, seeks extradition 
 treaty, 169 
 
 National Conference of Social 
 Work, extradition treaty urged, 
 169 
 
 National Desertion Bureau. Jew- 
 ish legal aid, 6s; story of trac- 
 ing a deserter, 69-70; collusive 
 desertion cases, 71; clearing 
 bureau established, 101-102 
 
 Neighborhood influence, see Stan- 
 dards 
 
 Newspapers, see Publicity 
 
 205 
 
INDEX 
 
 New York Association for Im- 
 proving the Condition of the 
 Poor: practice of Desertion 
 Bureau, 136 
 
 New York Charity Organization 
 Society: study of racial groups, 
 and percentages, 44-4S 
 
 New York State Conference of 
 Charities and Correction, Pro- 
 ceedings, on non-supporters, 
 150 
 
 Non-supporters: as potential 
 deserters, 149-163; legal treat- 
 ment of, 149-1S0; analogous 
 to deserters, IS0-IS3, 188; 
 characteristics, 151, 189. 190; 
 wife's influence a factor, 152- 
 154; illustrations, I5S. IS8, 
 160; reclamation, illustrated, 
 16 1- 163; approach to deser- 
 tion, 188-191 
 
 Non-support Law: in Massa- 
 chusetts, 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, n- 
 15 
 
 Permanent desertions, see Di- 
 vorce 
 
 Philadelphia Court of Domestic 
 Relations, report on reconcilia- 
 tions, 135-136 
 
 Philadelphia Society for Organiz- 
 ing 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 wo- 
 men, 35; maladjustments, 38; 
 recreation essential, 47; recom- 
 mendations, 196-199 
 
 "Pregnancy desertion": how ex- 
 plained, 34-35 
 
 Preventive treatment: past opin- 
 ions, 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, 1 19-120; and im- 
 prisonment, 1 2 1- 1 24; legal 
 separation proceedings during 
 128; officers effect reconcilia- 
 tion, 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 defi- 
 cients, and heredity, 24; in- 
 compatibility and sex perver- 
 sion, 37-39. See also Sex 
 factors 
 
 Psychology: rationalization proc- 
 ess, 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," loi; illustra- 
 tion, 196 
 
 Queen's Poor, The. M. Loane, 
 154 
 
 Questionnaires: liberal relief 
 policy, 62; searching for de- 
 serters, 78; treatment of deser- 
 tion, 106 
 
 206 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ratio of desertions: economic 
 factors, 21, 31, 32-33 
 
 Reconciliation: factors that 
 prompt, 13-14; and the "other 
 woman," 40-41; following 
 court marriage, 9S-96; after 
 prison term, 121-122; con- 
 siderations involved, 125-132; 
 unwillingness of wife, illus- 
 trated, 131; criminal tenden- 
 cies prevent, 134; affection a 
 safe basis of, 135; practice of 
 N. Y. Association for Improv- 
 ing 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 illus- 
 trated, 8; deserters disclaim, 
 19-20; essentials of early 
 training, 25-26; education pro- 
 motes, 29, 198; and charitable 
 relief, 48, 100; wage-earning 
 wives, and non-supporters, 154 
 
 Richmond, Mary E.: on volun- 
 teers 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 forgive- 
 ness, 13-14; statistical sum- 
 mary, 21-22; "pregnancy de- 
 sertion," 34-35; incompatibil- 
 ity, 37-40; immorality, 39, 96; 
 knowledge of sex psychology 
 essential, 103 
 
 Sex in Relation to Society. Have- 
 lock 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 im- 
 perative, 37-38; diagnoses re- 
 ferred to specialists, 38; under- 
 value recreation, 47; question- 
 naires on treatment, 62, 78, 
 106; detective methods, 68- 
 90; agency co-operation, 78- 
 90; sex problems, 103; neces- 
 sary information for, summar- 
 ized, 104-105; protection of 
 legal separation, 127; success- 
 ful case records, 142-148 
 
 Solenberger, Alice W., IS7 • 
 
 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; do- 
 mestic 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 
 
 207 
 
INDEX 
 
 intervention, 50-54; interview- 
 ing the man, 55-6o, 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; where- 
 abouts known, willing to re- 
 turn, 125-148; Philadelphia 
 Court of Domestic Relations, 
 study by, 13S-136; N. Y. 
 Association for Improving Con- 
 dition of the Poor, practice of, 
 136; family restoration illus- 
 trated, 137; volunteers recom- 
 mended, 139-140; wife relents, 
 illustration of reconciliation, 
 141; study of successful work- 
 er's records, 142-148 
 
 United Hebrew Charities, 71 
 
 Vagaries: marital, 34-35 
 
 Venereal disease: relation to de- 
 sertion. 41 
 
 Verification: of marriage, 98- 
 99; in Italy, 100; Latin- 
 American custom, 100 
 
 Volunteers: service valuable for 
 effecting reconciliation, 139- 
 140 
 
 Wanderlust: instability of tem- 
 perament, 19; relation to de- 
 sertion, 32 
 
 Warrant for arrest: protection 
 afforded wife, 127; system in- 
 adequate, 168 
 
 West, Alfred: case story of, 30 
 
 Wife and Family Desertion: Emi- 
 gration as a Contributory Cause. 
 J. R. Motion, 171 
 
 Wife who deserts, not considered, 
 15 
 
 Williams, Mrs. Clara: case story 
 of, 57-^0, III 
 
 208 
 
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