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_SOCIAL WORK SERIES_
BROKEN HOMES
A STUDY OF FAMILY DESERTION AND
ITS SOCIAL TREATMENT
_By_
JOANNA C. COLCORD
SUPERINTENDENT OF THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY
OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
NEW YORK
RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION
WM F. FELL CO PRINTERS
PHILADELPHIA
PREFACE
No less thoughtful a critic of men and manners than Joseph Conrad has
remarked recently that a universal experience "is exactly the sort of
thing which is most difficult to appraise justly in the individual
instance." The saying might have been made the motto of this book, for
in its pages Miss Colcord--with all the eagerness of the newer school of
social workers, bent upon understanding, upon making allowances--seeks
that just appraisal to which Conrad refers. Marital infelicities and
broken homes are not universal, fortunately, but some of the human
weaknesses which lead to them are very nearly so.
To one who brings a long perspective to any theme in social work, Broken
Homes suggests the successive stages through which the art of social
case work has progressed. Twenty years ago the editor of this Series was
responsible for the following sentences in an annual report: "One of our
most difficult problems has been how to deal with deserted wives with
children.... One good woman, whose husband had left her for the second
time more than a year ago, declared often and emphatically that she
would never let him come back. We rescued her furniture from the
landlord, found her work, furnished needed relief, and befriended the
children; but the drunken and lazy husband returned the other day, and
is sitting in the chairs we rescued, while he warms his hands at the
fire that we have kept burning."
The passage belongs to the first and what might be termed the "muddling
along" period of dealing with family desertion, but the fact that boards
of directors actually were willing to print such frank statements about
their own shortcomings was a sign that the period was drawing to a
close.
This first stage was succeeded by a disciplinary period, in which
earnest attempts were made to enact laws that would punish the deserter
and aid in his extradition whenever he took refuge across a state line.
Laws of the strictest, and these well enforced, seemed for a while the
only possible solution.
Then gradually, with the unfolding of a philosophy and a technique of
helping people in and through their social relationships, a new way of
dealing with this ancient and perplexing human failing was developed.
This third way involved a more careful analysis of relationships and
motives, a greater variety in approach, an increased flexibility in
treatment, a new faith, perhaps, in the re-creative powers latent in
human nature. But it is unnecessary to enlarge upon a point of view
which these pages admirably illustrate. Desertion laws continue to serve
a definite purpose, as Miss Colcord makes clear, but no longer are they
either the first or the second resort of the skilful probation officer,
family case worker, or child protective agent.
Just after the Russell Sage Foundation published a treatise on Social
Diagnosis two years ago, a number of letters came to the author urging
that a volume on the treatment of social maladjustments in individual
cases follow. But this second subject is not yet ready for the large
general treatise. A topic so new as social case treatment must be
developed aspect by aspect, preferably in small, practical volumes each
written by a specialist. This is such a volume, and Miss Colcord breaks
new ground, moreover, in that her book illustrates the whole present
trend of social work as applied to individuals.
Grateful acknowledgment should be made to the social case workers who
have furnished valuable contributions to the body of data gathered for
the present study. Miss Colcord wishes mention made of her especial
indebtedness to Miss Betsey Libbey, Miss Helen Wallerstein and Miss
Elizabeth Wood of Philadelphia; Mr. C.C. Carstens and Miss Elizabeth
Holbrook of Boston; Mrs. A.B. Fox and Mr. J.C. Murphy of Buffalo; Miss
Caroline Bedford of Minneapolis; Mr. Stockton Raymond of Columbus; Mrs.
Helen Glenn Tyson of Pittsburgh; Mr. Arthur Towne of Brooklyn; Mr. E.J.
Cooley, Mr. Charles Zunser, Mr. Hiram Myers, and Miss Mary B. Sayles of
New York. Many others not here mentioned were untiring in answering
questions and furnishing needed information.
MARY E. RICHMOND
_Editor of the Social Work Series_
NEW YORK, May, 1919.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 7
II. WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES? 17
III. CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT 50
IV. FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND 65
V. FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION 91
VI. THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT 106
VII. THE DETAILS OF TREATMENT (_Continued_) 125
VIII. THE HOME-STAYING NON-SUPPORTER 149
IX. NEXT STEPS IN CORRECTIVE TREATMENT 164
X. NEXT STEPS IN PREVENTIVE TREATMENT 185
INDEX 201
BROKEN HOMES
I
INTRODUCTION
It has frequently been said that desertion is the poor man's divorce
but, like many epigrams, this one hardly stands the test of experience.
When examined closely it is neither illuminating nor, if the testimony
of social case workers can be accepted, is it true. It is true, of
course, that many of the causes of domestic infelicity which lead to
divorce among the well-to-do may bring about desertion among the less
fortunate, but the deserting man does not, as a rule, consider his
absences from home as anything so final and definite as divorce.
In a study of desertion made by the Philadelphia Society for Organizing
Charity in 1902,[1] it was found that 87 per cent of the men studied
had deserted more than once. The combined experience of social workers
goes to show that a comparatively small number of first deserters make
so complete a break in their marital relations that they are never heard
from again, and that an even smaller number actually start new families
elsewhere, although no statistical proof of this last statement is
available. One social worker of experience says that in her judgment
desertion, instead of being a poor man's divorce, comes nearer to being
a poor man's vacation.
A man who had always been a good husband and father was discharged
from hospital after a long and exhausting illness and returned to
his family--wife and seven children--in their five-room tenement.
Ten days later he disappeared suddenly, but reappeared some two
weeks later in very much better health and ready to resume his
occupation and the care of his family. His explanation of his
apparent desertion was that he was unable to stand the confusion of
his home and "had needed rest." He had "beaten his way" to
Philadelphia and visited a friend there.
The reporter of the foregoing remarks that it illustrates "unconscious
self-therapy," and that the patient's disappearance might have been
avoided if the services of a good medical-social department had been
available at the hospital where the man was treated.
It is more difficult to justify the thirst for experience of another
deserting husband who came to the office of a family social agency after
an absence of a few months, with effusive thanks for the care of his
family and the explanation that he "had always wanted to see the West,
and this had been the only way he could find of accomplishing it."
In fact, case work has convinced social workers that there are few
things less permanent than desertion. In itself this provisional quality
tends to create irritation in the minds of many of the profession. It is
upsetting to plan for a deserted family which stops being deserted, so
to speak, overnight. But in their understandable despair social workers
sometimes overlook essential facts about the nature of marriage. The
_permanence_ of family life is one of the foundation stones of their
professional faith; yet they may fail to recognize certain
manifestations of this permanence as part and parcel of the end for
which they are striving. They would see no point in the practice adopted
by a certain social agency which deals with many cases of family
desertion. This society, when it has had occasion to print copies of a
deserter's photograph to use in seeking to discover his present
whereabouts, often presents his wife with an enlargement of the picture
suitable for framing. The procedure displays, nevertheless, a profound
insight not only into human nature but into the human institution called
marriage.
In the next chapter will be considered some of the causes that make men
leave their homes. To deal effectively with the situation created by
desertion, however, we have need of a wider knowledge than this. Not
only what takes men away but what keeps them from going, what brings
them back, what leads to their being forgiven and received into their
homes again, are matters that seriously concern the social case worker.
What is it that makes this plant called marriage so tough of fiber and
so difficult to eradicate from even the most unfriendly soil?
It is fortunate (since the majority of case workers are unmarried) that
simply to have been a member of a family gives one some understanding of
these questions. The theorist who maintains that marriage is purely
economic, or that it is entirely a question of sex, has either never
belonged to a real family or has forgotten some of the lessons he
learned there.
Many volumes have been written upon the history of marriage, or rather
of the family, since, as one historian justly puts it, "marriage has its
source in the family rather than the family in marriage."[2] In all
these studies the influence of law, of custom, of self-interest, and of
economic pressure, is shown to have molded the institution of marriage
into curious shapes and forms, some grievous to be borne. But is it not
after all the crystallized and conventionalized records of past time
which have had to be used as the source material of such studies, and
could the spiritual values of the family in any period be found in its
laws and learned discourses? We might rather expect to find students of
these sources preoccupied with the outward aspects, the failures, the
unusual instances. It is as true of human beings as of nations, that the
happy find no chronicler. "Out of ... interest and joy in caring for
children in their weakness and watching that weakness grow to strength,
family life came into being and has persisted."[3] It is hardly
conceivable that in any society, however primitive, there were not some
real families--even when custom ran otherwise--in which marriage meant
love and kindness and the mutual sharing of responsibilities. And these
families, today as always, are the creators and preservers of the
spiritual gains of the human race. It has been beautifully said of the
family in such a form, that "it is greater than love itself, for it
includes, ennobles, makes permanent, all that is best in love. The pain
of life is hallowed by it, the drudgery sweetened, its pleasures
consecrated. It is the great trysting-place of the generations, where
past and future flash into the reality of the present. It is the great
storehouse in which the hardly-earned treasures of the past, the
inheritance of spirit and character from our ancestors, are guarded and
preserved for our descendants. And it is the great discipline through
which each generation learns anew the lesson of citizenship that no man
can live for himself alone."[4] It follows that the most trying and
discouraging feature of social work with deserted wives; namely, their
determination to take worthless men back and back again for another
trial, is often only a further manifestation of the extraordinary
viability of the family.
It is true that, into this enduring quality, many elements enter, some
homely or merely material. A desire for support, or for a resumption of
sex relations, may play a part in a wife's decision to forgive the
wanderer. There are many other factors--use and wont; pride in being
able to show a good front to the neighbors; a feeling that it is
unnatural to be receiving support from other sources. Just the mere
desire to have his clothes hanging on the wall and the smell of his pipe
about, the hundreds of small details that go to make up the habit of
living together, have each their separate pull on the woman whose
instinct to be wife and mother to her erring man is urging her to give
in; Home is, in both their minds,
" ... the place where when you have to go there
They have to take you in....
Something you somehow haven't to deserve."[5]
A woman who had left her home town and found clerical work in a strange
city, in order not to be near her syphilitic husband from whom she had
determined to separate, said, "When you've been married to a man, you
can't get over feeling your place is with him."
However we may deplore the results in a given case, the spineless woman
who takes her husband back many times may nevertheless be giving a
demonstration of the thing we are most interested in conserving--the
durability and persistence of the family. And so the social worker who
is enabled by experience or imagination to enter into the real meaning
of family life is neither scornful nor amused when Mrs. Finnegan is
found, on the morning when her case against Finnegan is to come up in
the domestic relations court, busily washing and ironing his other shirt
in order that he may make a proper appearance and not disgrace the
family before the judge.
* * * * *
An attempt will be made in this small book to analyze some causal
factors in the problem of the deserter, to touch upon recent changes in
the attitude of social workers toward deserted families, to present
illustrations from the best discoverable practice in the treatment of
desertion, and to suggest certain possible next steps, both on the legal
and on the social side. For lack of space, it will be impossible to
consider the closely related problems of the deserting wife, the
unmarried mother, or the divorced couple. It is assumed throughout that
the reader is familiar with the general theory of modern case work; and
no more is here attempted than to give a number of suggestions which
will be found to be practical, it is hoped, when the social worker deals
with the home marred and broken by desertion, or when he seeks to
prevent this evil by such constructive measures as are now possible.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Philadelphia Society for
Organizing Charity, p. 25.
[2] Goodsell, Willystine: The Family as a Social and Educational
Institution, p. 8. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1915.
[3] Byington, Margaret F.: Article on "The Normal Family," _Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, May, 1918.
[4] Bosanquet, Helen: The Family, p. 342. London, Macmillan & Co., 1906.
[5] Frost, Robert: North of Boston, p. 20. New York, Henry Holt & Co.,
1915.
II
WHY DO MEN DESERT THEIR FAMILIES?
"Before the deserter there was a broken man," said a district secretary
who has had conspicuous success in dealing with such men. By this
characterization she meant not necessarily a physical or mental wreck,
but a man bankrupt for the time being in health, hopes, prospects, or in
all three; a man who lacked the power or the will to dominate adverse
conditions, who had allowed life to overcome him. Such an unfortunate
may not be conscious of his own share in bringing about the difficulties
in which he finds himself, but he is always aware that something has
gone seriously wrong in his life. His grasp of this fact is the one sure
ground upon which the social worker can meet him at the start.
We should distinguish between the _causes_ that bring about a given
desertion, and the _conscious motives in the mind of the deserter_. It
is well for the social worker to make the latter the starting point in
dealing with the man, accepting the most preposterous as at least worthy
of discussion. The absconder is often too inarticulate and ill at ease
to give a clear picture of what was in his mind when he went away. If he
was out of work, it may have been a perfectly sincere belief that he
would find work elsewhere, or perhaps only a speculative hope that he
might. (These are not in the beginning genuine desertions, but often
become so later on.) It is possible that, beset by irritations and
perplexities, the thought of cutting his way out at one stroke from all
his difficulties made an appeal too strong to be resisted. Or perhaps he
flung out of the house and away, in a passion of anger and jealousy
which later crystallized into cold dislike. The spell of an infatuation
for another woman might well have been the cause; or he may have been
mentally deranged through alcohol. Simple weariness of the burden which
he has not strength of body or mind to carry and ought never to have
assumed is one attitude to be reckoned with, and failure to realize or
in his heart accept the binding nature of his obligations is another.
His temperamental instability may have been such that the desire for a
change--the "wanderlust"--was driving him to distraction. Or perhaps,
under the urge of his own subconscious feeling of failure, he may have
convinced himself that if he could "shake" the old environment and all
in it that hampered him, he could take a fresh start and make good. "If
I could only get to California," sighed Patrick Donald,[6] "I have a
feeling things would be different." With too much imagination to be
content with the situation in which he found himself, Donald had not
imagination enough to realize that he would have to take his old self
with him wherever he went, and that he might better fight things out
where he stood. Men of his sort yearn constantly for the future, not
realizing that in its truest sense the present _is_ the future.
Only in rare instances will the deserter accept the entire
responsibility for his act. To try to find justification for doing what
we want to do is characteristic of human beings, and the deserter is no
exception. He attempts to "rationalize" his conduct and so regain his
sense of self-approval and well-being by finding excuses and
justifications in the conduct of others. Even when the fault is all his,
he usually succeeds in making himself believe that his wife is more to
blame than he for his having left home.[7] The social worker who
attempts to deal with the situation the deserter creates should know
this attitude in advance and be prepared, through some simple
rule-of-thumb psychology, to attack the obsession and bring him, first
of all, to see and face squarely his own responsibility.
Many blanket theories have been developed to explain desertion--that it
is due to economic pressure; that it is the result of bad housekeeping;
that its causes can all be reduced to sex incompatibility. All these
factors: undoubtedly have their bearing on the problem, but there is no
one cause or group of causes underlying breakdowns in family morale. The
ratio of desertions has been observed to decrease rather than to
increase in "hard times";[8] moreover, it is a matter of common
observation that not all slovenly and incompetent wives are deserted,
and that many married couples in all walks of life whose sex
relationships are unsatisfactory, nevertheless maintain the fabric of
family life and support and bring up their children with an average
degree of success. None of these three factors alone will serve,
therefore, as a fundamental causation unit in desertion. Many
statistical attempts have been made to study the causes of desertion,
and to assign to each its mathematical percentage of influence. The
report of a court of domestic relations gives such an analysis of over
1,500 cases, listing 25 causes, and carefully calculating the percentage
of cases due to each. A summary of these percentages grouped under five
heads is as follows:
_Percentage_
1. Distinct sex factors 39.03
2. Alcohol and narcotic drugs 37.00
3. Temperamental traits 15.40
4. Economic issues 6.27
5. Mental and physical troubles 2.30
------
100.00
It would be easy to criticize the foregoing on the score of grouping.
Can alcoholism and drug addiction be separated from mental and physical
disorders? And how distinguish infallibly between sex factors,
temperamental traits, and mental disabilities? But the main defect in
such statistical studies is that they assume in each case one cause, or
at least one cause sufficiently dominant to dwarf the rest; and few of
the causes listed are really fundamental. The mind instinctively begins
to reach back after the causes of all these causes. The social worker
who made the sweeping assertion that there are two great reasons for
marital discord--"selfishness in men and peevishness in women,"--came a
good deal nearer to an accurate statement of fact with infinitely less
trouble.
Looked at from the point of view of the social worker, desertion is
itself only a symptom of some more deeply seated trouble in the family
structure. The problem presented, if it could have been recognized in
time, is not essentially different from what it would have been before
the man's departure. Without attempting, therefore, any statistical
analysis of the causes of desertion, we may nevertheless be able to
examine one by one a number of possible _contributory factors_ in
marital unhappiness and therefore in desertion. No attempt will be made
in the list that follows to distinguish between primary and secondary
causes, nor to arrange them in any order of importance. An effort to get
from case workers lists so arranged resulted only in confusion, each
person emphasizing a different set of factors. The groupings here given,
therefore, are no more than a placing of the more obviously related
factors together and a leading from past history up to the present.
Considering first the personal as distinguished from the community
factors in desertion, these may be listed as follows:
CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE MAN AND WOMAN
1. Actual Mental Deficiency.--Character weaknesses such as were spoken
of earlier in this chapter grade down by degrees into real mental defect
or disorder, and not even the psychiatrist can always draw the line.
A physician connected with the Municipal Court in Boston gives as his
opinion that while the percentage of actually insane or feeble-minded
among deserters is no higher than among other offenders they are
extremely likely to present some of the phenomena of psychopathic
personality. Such people have to be studied by the social worker and the
psychiatrist, and not from the behavior side only, but with a view to
discovering what sort of equipment for life was handed down to them from
their family stock.
The plan for the future of a fifteen-year-old boy which was made by
a society for family social work was markedly modified when it was
discovered that not only his father but his grandfather had been a
man of violent and abusive temper, who drank habitually and
neglected their family obligations. With this sort of heredity and
an ineffective mother, whom he was accustomed to seeing treated with
abuse and disrespect, it was felt important to remove the boy, who
showed some promise, to surroundings where he could be under firm
discipline and learn decent standards of family life.
Feeble-mindedness, closely connected as it usually is with industrial
inefficiency in the man, bad housekeeping in the woman, and lack of
self-control in both, is of course, a potent factor in non-support and
probably also in desertion.
2. Faults in Early Training.--To low ideals of home life and of
personal obligation, which were imbibed in youth, can be traced much
family irresponsibility. It is by no means the rule, however, for
children always to follow in the footsteps of weak or vicious parents;
and it is the experience of social workers that such children, taught by
observation to avoid the faults seen in their own homes, often make good
parents themselves. Perhaps even more insidious in its effect on later
marital history is the home in which no self-control is learned. The
so-called "good homes" in which children are exposed to petting,
coddling, and overindulgence--and these homes are not confined to the
wealthy--produce adults who do not stand up to their responsibilities. A
probation officer in Philadelphia tells of the mother of a young
deserter who could not account for her son's delinquency. "He _ought_ to
be a good boy," she complained; "I carried him up to bed myself every
night till he was eleven years old."
3. Differences in Background.--Even though both man and wife come from
good homes, if those homes are widely different in standards and in
cultural background strains may develop in later life between the
couple. Differences in race, religion and age are recognized as having a
causative relation to desertion. Miss Brandt[9] found that, in about 28
per cent of the cases where these facts were ascertained, the husband
and wife were of different nationality. "In the general population of
the United States in 1900 only 8.5 per cent was of mixed parentage, and
for New York City the proportion was less than 13 per cent.... A
difference in nationality was more than twice as frequent among the
cases of desertion as among the general population of the city where it
is most common." Miss Brandt's figures for difference of religion are
less significant, but it existed in 19 per cent of the total number of
cases for which information on this point was available. In 27 per cent
of the families where age-facts were learned, there were differences of
over six years between the two; in 15 per cent the woman was older than
the man.
Other differences which should find mention under this heading are those
that arise when the environment is changed by immigration. The man who
precedes his wife by many years in coming to America has often outgrown
her when she finally joins him, even if he has formed no other family
ties. The handicap is not wholly overcome when the couple come to this
country together, for the much greater opportunities of the man to
learn American ways may drive a wedge between him and his wife. On the
other hand it is a popular saying, particularly among young Italian
immigrants, that girls who have been in America too long do not make
good wives, that when a man wants to marry he had better send for a girl
from the old country; and these marriages seem on the whole to turn out
well.
4. Wrong Basis of Marriage.--Included here should be hasty marriages,
mercenary marriages, marriages entered into unwillingly after pregnancy
had occurred, as well as marriages where coercion was a factor for other
reasons.[10]
When there have been sex relations before marriage, unless the custom of
the community sanctions such intimacy, there are likely to develop
jealousies, quarrels, and ill feeling. "He do be always castin' it up at
me, but sure, 'twas himself was to blame" is one version of the age-old
story.
There should also be included here those irregular unions called
"common law marriages," which are still permitted in many of our states.
The protection supposed to be afforded to the woman by this institution
is mainly fictitious, as it is practically impossible to secure
conviction for bigamy if one of the marriages was of the common law
variety. A common law husband who deserts, even if he admits his wife's
legal claim upon him, does not feel morally bound; and this fact
undoubtedly plays its part in the causation of such desertions.[11]
5. Lack of Education.--More is included under this title than scanty
"book-learning." Not only the morally undisciplined child but the
mentally undisciplined youth is handicapped as spouse and parent.
Ignorance of the physical and spiritual bases of married life is a
potent cause of desertion. So also is a limited industrial equipment.
Irregular school attendance, early "working papers," a dead-end job with
no educational possibilities in it--these form a frequent background
for later unsuccess in life and in marriage.
There seemed at first no good explanation for the desertion of
Alfred West. Both his record and his wife's were good, and their
mutual fondness for the children seemed a strong bond. They
constantly bickered, however, over the small income Alfred was able
to earn, and his wife and her relatives "looked down" upon him as
being lower than they in the social scale. Inquiry into past history
showed that he had grown up in a southern community where there were
no facilities for education, and that he could not even read and
write until after his marriage. Although of average capacity, he was
restricted by his early lack of training in his choice of a job; and
the mortification and sense of inferiority which his wife fostered
led to discouragement and indifference, which ended in desertion. A
thorough understanding of the two backgrounds involved enabled a
social worker to effect a real reconciliation, with the woman's eyes
opened to her ungenerous behavior and the man taking steps to
improve his education in a night school.
6. Occupational Faults.--Closely allied to the foregoing, and in some
respects growing out of it, are the shortcomings on the employment side
that contribute to marital instability. Most of these can be referred
back to lack of education or opportunity in youth, or to defects of
character. Laziness, incompetence, lack of skill in any trade, lack of
application, or, on the other hand, the possession by a man with no
business "stake" in the community of a trade at which he can work
wherever he takes a fancy to go, or of a trade which is seasonal and
shifting--all these have a direct relation to desertion.
The wife's competence and willingness to earn often seems to have a
causal connection with the man's failure as "provider."[12]
Corresponding to and complementing the man's industrial defects, and
springing from the same causes, is the woman's failure in the business
of being a housewife. The wife's laziness, incompetence, lack of
interest, and lack of skill and knowledge create, as one case worker
puts it, "the sort of home that tends to get itself deserted." These
faults of the wife are responsible for as many desertions, probably, as
are the faults of the husband. When the man and the wife are both
industrial failures we get the extremity of family breakdown to be found
in records of "chronic non-support" cases.
7. Wanderlust.--As a cause of family desertion this has probably been
overestimated. Some item of this sort appears in every list of causes of
desertion which has ever been compiled, and there are more or less
exceptional cases in which it probably plays a part. The boy who becomes
a vagabond in childhood and early takes to the road does not, however,
seem to be a marrying man; and the instances from case work in which it
is clear that the thirst for adventure was at the bottom of desertion
are rare. The man whose line of work before marriage led him from place
to place seems, in fact, hardly to contribute his quota to the ranks of
wife-deserters, and it is unusual to find sailors or other wanderers
from force of circumstance figuring among them.
8. Money Troubles.--As has already been said, it is impossible to show
any direct relation between small incomes and desertion. The connection
between low wage and non-support is of course a great deal closer. The
inadequate income unquestionably acts indirectly to break down family
morale in much the same way as does lowered physical vitality.
But marital discord that springs from the _handling_ of the family
finances is another matter, and it recurs regularly in the history of
what went on prior to desertion. One deserter, traced to a southern
city, returned voluntarily and begged the assistance of the social
worker interested to reform his wife's spending habits. "I made good
money and I never opened my pay envelope on her," said he, "but the
week's wages was always gone by Thursday." Many men, however, who make a
boast of turning over unbroken pay envelopes to their wives borrow back
so much in daily advances that their net contribution is only a fraction
of their wages.
Some desertions brought about by financial difficulties are not,
strictly speaking, marital problems at all. Debts resulting from his own
extravagance or dishonesty may cause a man to leave home to escape
prosecution or disgrace. One such man kept in touch with his family,
sending money at irregular intervals for some years, but always moving
on to another place before he could be found. It proved impossible to
get in communication with him, and finally he stopped writing and
disappeared.
9. Ill Health: Physical Debility.--All social workers agree that
physical condition plays a part, though usually only indirectly and
secondarily, in causing desertion. In the man, it may lower his
vitality, cause irregular work, and superinduce a condition of
despondency and readiness to give in. In the woman, it brings about
careless housekeeping, loss of attractiveness, and disinclination to
marital intercourse--all factors which contribute directly to desertion.
Continued ill health of the wife brings burdens, financial and other,
which may help through discouragement to break down the husband's
morale.
There should be included here some consideration of one of the most
puzzling types of abandonment--the "pregnancy desertion." Attempts have
been made to explain it on the ground of the instinctive aversion of the
male sex for domestic crises. But the impulse that causes the
prosperous householder to move to his club when house-cleaning time
arrives will hardly serve to explain such a custom, and as a matter of
fact other domestic crises, such as illnesses of the children, do not
have any such effect upon the man who habitually absents himself from
home before the birth of each child. Other possible reasons for it are
the well-known irritability and "difficulty" of women in this condition,
and their aversion to sexual intercourse. Some pregnancy deserters take
the step in the hope that their wives will bring about an abortion; but
this is a modern and sophisticated development and the institution of
"pregnancy desertion" is one of undoubted antiquity. Its prevalence
among certain European immigrants would almost point to its being a
racial tradition. Ethnologists who have studied strange marriage
customs, such as the "couvade," ought to turn their attention to
discovering the causes of this other and socially more important marital
vagary.
10. Temperamental Incompatibility.--It is difficult to catalogue and
appraise the causal factors in desertion that lie in personality. They
are closely related to differences in background and are intimately
involved with the sex relations of the pair. We cannot, however, admit
that they are identical with the latter, as some students of the subject
claim; or that the only incompatibility in marriage is sex
incompatibility. Indeed, two people may be so incompatible as to find in
sex their only common ground.
The commonest of these temperamental differences center about
standards of right and wrong or proper and improper conduct.
Especially is this manifested in the bringing up of the children.
Extreme self-righteousness on the part of one or the other, nagging
and petty criticism, unreasonable jealousy, "sulking spells," violent
quarrels, are some of its manifestations. The idea of _possession_
exercised by either of the couple, and especially a tendency to
dominate or try to control on the part of the woman, may be a causal
factor in desertion. The lack of a saving sense of humor in one or
both is often a complicating factor. These comparatively minor
differences take on a serious complexion in the minds of the couple;
and it is surprising how often a deserting man will give promptly and
with every appearance of feeling justified some cause for his
desertion which falls clearly under this head. "People forgive each
other the big things; it's the little things they can't forgive."
11. Sex Incompatibility.--There comes under this heading a wide range
of causative factors which play an important part in marital discord.
Some of them are better understood by the social worker than was
formerly the case; but many of them are obscure even to the practitioner
of mental medicine, to whom their results come daily. Distasteful as the
task may be, the social worker should familiarize herself, through
reading or through instruction by a qualified physician, in the commoner
forms of these maladjustments. This is not urged because it is part of
the social worker's task to make detailed inquiry into such matters or
to pass judgment upon them, but because they often clamor for attention
and need to be recognized by the first responsible person to whose
notice they are brought. Unless she knows, for instance, what
constitutes excess in sex relations, a worker may misunderstand the
situation described to her and condemn a man for being a selfish brute,
when the trouble is really sexual anæsthesia in the wife. It is well
known that this single cause operates disastrously to disrupt many
marriages or else to render them insupportable. The warning should be
added, however--and it cannot be added too emphatically--that the social
worker must scrupulously refrain from making diagnoses in these cases,
even tentatively; she must refer such data as come to her either to the
general practitioner or to the psychiatrist, selecting one or the other
as the symptoms presented may indicate.
Less well understood by the lay worker are actual maladjustments, both
physical and mental (or spiritual), which prevent the complete
satisfaction of one or both. Some of these are curable by medical care,
others by instruction and education. This instruction should be given,
needless to say, by the physician and not by the case worker. If
uncorrected such maladjustments are apt to result in marital shipwreck.
No attempt can be made here to discuss actual sex perversions in their
relation to desertion. Their effect is obvious; and the social worker
should be sufficiently well informed, not only from a few standard books
on the subject,[13] but from a knowledge of the phrases which are used
in the tenements, to understand them, so that significant symptoms are
not overlooked. So intimately are sex difficulties connected with the
neuroses that the lay social worker should consult the psychiatrist
freely wherever one is available, before attempting to deal with them.
12. Vicious Habits.--Sexual immorality, through its degenerative
effect on personality and the lowered ideals of marriage it induces, has
a real effect in bringing about desertion. The "other man" and the
"other woman" type of desertion, however, is often itself only a
consequence of a previously existing state of temperamental or sexual
incompatibility. If these underlying causes can be attacked and changed
such a desertion may be "repairable."
A young man deserted his wife and three children and eloped with an
eighteen-year-old girl who had made his acquaintance in a street car
flirtation. He had been "an obedient boy with good principles," and
his later record showed steadiness and ability; but he and his wife
had been drifting apart--their marital relations had not been "quite
the same" as formerly. Arrested and brought back, he did not impute
any blame to her, however, but said he "must have been crazy." In
spite of the circumstances, the judge decided to give him six months
in the penitentiary; and a man visitor from the family social agency
interested began at once to try to secure an influence over him. On
his release the couple again went to housekeeping. The wife had been
cautioned on how to receive him; but things went badly at first, and
the man began again insisting that they were mismated. (He "had the
other girl still considerably on his conscience and heart.") Tangles
continually arose which the society's visitor was hard put to it to
straighten out. Once the wife found a letter from the girl; but
finally, after the charity organization society in the city where he
had left the girl reported that she was doing well and not breaking
her heart about him, the man decided to "cut out" the
correspondence. A little later the girl eliminated herself by
marrying. A year after the reconciliation the wife told the friendly
visitor that the trouble was gone between them, and "it was just
like a new life." For another year efforts were continued to
strengthen the attachment and make the home more attractive, at the
end of which time it was felt that the home was stable enough to
need no further supervision.
For reasons of convenience we may include here the causal relations
between venereal disease and desertion. In so far as syphilis brings
about mental and physical deterioration, the relation between the two is
obvious. The presence of the disease in the man, if known to his wife,
may lead her to sever relations with him in self-protection, and this
severance, in turn, may lead ultimately to desertion or complete
separation. Often separation is desirable, but the syphilitic who is on
the whole a good family man raises some of the most difficult questions
with which the social worker has to deal. Whether to try to force him
out of the home and thus make an unwilling deserter; whether to violate
the diagnosis given in confidence by passing it on to the wife for her
protection--these are only two of the puzzles that may arise.
The relation of alcoholism to non-support and desertion is too well
known to require discussion. The causative relation between alcohol and
desertion is so direct that it probably ought not to be included under
contributory causes at all. As it is an active poison to the cells of
the nervous system, it may bring about deteriorations of mind and
character that are directly to blame for such anti-social acts as
desertion. The same is true in less degree of the use of narcotics;
though drug habits are far less common in connection with desertion than
alcoholism. What relation drugs and alcohol will hold to desertion after
July 1, 1919, remains to be seen. Alcoholism in the woman is, however, a
real contributory factor, and one frequently met with. The experience of
social workers leads them to believe that alcohol is more devastating in
its effects on character with women than with men, and that there is
less hope of a cure. The great majority of so-called "justifiable
deserters" are the husbands of alcoholic women.
Gambling in its effect on family income will be discussed in connection
with non-support, to which it bears a much more direct relation than to
desertion. In its degenerative effect upon character it may have,
however, a real causal relation to the latter.
The habit of desertion itself is a degenerative one, not only upon the
deserter but upon his home. The "intermittent husband" often weakens and
demoralizes his wife in almost the same ratio as his own progress
down-hill.
CONTRIBUTORY FACTORS IN THE COMMUNITY
1. Interference of Relatives.--The tendency of relatives to take sides
against their "in-laws" is a matter of everyone's observation. It is
frequently found as a serious factor in desertion. Many case stories
which will be used in the following chapters to illustrate other points
show also the harmful interference of relatives in what might otherwise
have been a fairly stable home. Relatives can be a factor in marital
discord without actively interfering. One high-tempered young couple
formed what amounted to a habit of frequent quarrels and temporary
separations simply because the parents of both stood ready to take them
back whenever they chose to live apart. Relatives within the home as
well as outside it may exercise an unfortunate influence on marital
relations. The desertion of a middle-aged man who married a widow was
found to be directly caused by the antagonism which grew up between him
and his grown step-children.
2. Racial Attitude toward Marriage.--The racial factor is important in
desertion. Not only the individual's own background, but the attitude of
the people whence he sprang toward the sanctity of marriage, toward the
position of women, and toward the importance of restraint in sexual
relations, will have an effect upon the desertion rate of a given racial
group. A study was recently made of 480 deserters known to the New York
Charity Organization Society in 1916-17 whose nationality was given. The
results in percentage form are given for what they may be worth,
compared with the same percentage in 2,987 families of known
nationalities which were under care for all causes during the same year.
NATIONALITY OR RACE
| |Per cent
|Per cent |among 2,987
Race or place of birth |among 480 |families under
|deserters |care for all
| |causes
---------------------------------------------------
United States--white | 30.6 | 29.7
United States--colored | 11.2 | 5.6
Irish | 9.7 | 14.7
Other British | 5.0 | 4.7
German | 6.2 | 6.2
Italian | 20.2 | 28.0
Austrian | 5.5 | 4.8
Russian | 2.8 | 1.0
Polish | 3.3 | 1.2
Other | 5.5 | 4.1
----------------------------------------------------
| 100.0 | 100.0
3. Community Standards.--It cannot be too emphatically stated that any
tendency in the community to belittle or ridicule the estate of
matrimony has a definite cumulative effect on desertion. The "when a
man's married" series in the comic supplements, certain comic films in
the moving picture shows, the form of drama popularly called "bedroom
farce" are examples of these destructive forces. Most of the people who
laugh at them accept them as a humorous formula and are not seriously
affected by them; but their educational effect on young people is bound
to be bad and false to the last degree. In so far as they overemphasize
romantic love and disparage conjugal love, the theater and the popular
press do this generation great disservice.
Another way in which the community may affect the popular conception of
marriage is in the administration of civil marriage. Lack of care in
enforcing the laws and lack of gravity in performing the ceremonies may
have a decided reaction on respect for those laws and for the
institution itself. Similarly, the administration of divorce laws may
affect the popular conception of marriage. One entire neighborhood
condoned the situation in which a deserted wife immediately went to live
with another man, on the ground that "if they had been rich, they could
have got a divorce."
4. Lack of Proper Recreation.--This may seem a subject to be
discussed under personal factors; but proper recreation, after all,
depends in large measure upon what the community provides or makes
available. The American tendency for the man to get his recreation apart
from his family, in saloons and social clubs, is responsible for many
family maladjustments. Any change in family habits of recreation which
means that the man and wife enjoy fewer things together is a danger
signal the seriousness of which is not always appreciated. Social
workers are inclined to undervalue not only the influence of faulty
recreation as a factor in family breakdown, but also the possibilities
of good recreation as an aid in family reconstruction.