Broken Homes: A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment

sed on the danger of increasing the desertion rate by a policy of too sympathetic care for deserters' families. Little study was made of individual causes, and in so far as ther

other could support herself unaided; or, if relief was given, to give smaller amounts than to a widow or the wife of a man in hospital. As soon as the man had been placed unde

public to draw any line between the widow and the deserted wife, or indeed to inquire which of these two a woman was, so long as she was a good mother and "seemed worthy." No wonder that the pioneering social agencies, busy forging tools out of the very ore, took a rigid stand on such a question of social policy as this. Although their deterrents failed to eradicate the evil of desertion or indeed to touch its sources, there is little doubt that they did l

vidual cases. Hardly any statistical figure in the work of family social agencies shows so little fluctuation from year to year and betwee

idual against another does the relation between them remain unchanged. One could not conceive of a business partnership failing to be annulled by one partner who brought suit against another; yet we expect the marriage relation to survive this. As a matter of fact, such is its vitality that it often does. But many times the result of court action is only to deaden once and for all the tiny spark from which marital happiness might have been rekindled. As long as it survives, both man and wife feel in their inmost hearts that, no matter what his offense, to "take him to court" is treason against the intangible bonds that still hold between them. No matter h

worker's hands would be tied, and the possibility of a rich and flexible treatment of desertion problems would be lost to her. It is precisely because they had no such recourse that the case workers of an earlier day had to adopt

ents with a first desertion, they would rather take the risk of having the man vanish a second time after having been found, than have him arrested before an attempt to talk the matter out with him. More stringent measures, they believe, can be resorted to later-but the man must first be convinced that he will be listened to patiently and with the intent to deal fairly. The case worker knows that the power of the human mind to "rati

nterpretation and distrust, built upon the basic fact of their incompatibility, which has to be pulled down before the true causes can be probed. To arrest a man in this state of mind is in his eyes simply to "take sides" against him. Eventually he may have to be arrested, but, in the case worke

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 w

d was corroborated from other sources, and Mr. Williams' work references indicated that he had been quarrelsome and difficult for his employers to get along with, although a competent workman. The problem seemed to the desertion agent a perfectly clear and uncomplicated one and he proceeded to handle it according to the formula. Some very clever detective work followed, in the course of which the man was traced from one suburban city to another, and his present place of employment found in the city where his wife lived, although he lived just across the border of another state. The warrant was served upo

ty. The school teacher deplored the effect which the morbid nature of Mrs. Williams was having on her youngest child-a daughter just entering adolescence. The son, a boy a little older, was listless and unsatisfactory at his work, and defiant and secretive toward any attempt to get to know him better. He spent many nights away from home and was evidently not on good terms with his mother. As soon as Mrs. Williams saw that real information was desired she began indulging in fits

g he had endeavored to place the children in homes, and had once had his wife taken into court. There her plausible story and good appearance resulted in the case being dismissed with a reprimand to the husband. He then left home, but continued to send her money at intervals, although as he got older he was able to earn less at his trade. Socialism was his religion, and it was his preaching of this doctrine in season and out to his fellow workmen which had earned him the ill-will of his employers. He defended his present mode of living, vigorously putting up a strong argument that it was a real marriage, whereas the other had only been a sham. He spoke in terms of affection of the woman who was giving him the only real home he had ever known,

"easy-going conviction that his family will get along somehow without him" by giving relief. She approves offering full support in an institution, but is reluctant to recommend any

point of view later on. There is a possibility that other would-be deserters may be deterred by temporarily breaking up the home, and that an occasional absconding father may be brought back. But the fact remains that social workers have, in practice,

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

ew. In most states, however, some safeguards are set up; the wife must take out a warrant, and a given number of y

han formerly that the time to "close the

ntinued treatment. We need to think more humanely about all the unsettling elements in our urban civilization and to see that all the nice individual adjustments that as case workers we can make are made. If the man's work gives him no opportunity for self-e

ration of the man's point of view, less tendency to press court action, at least in the beginning, fewer commitments of children, a more liberal r

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d Non-Support in Family Case Work," The Annals of the A

enth New York State Co