connected with the two just discussed. Neighborhood standards, as they
affect individuals, are apt to be transmitted through the small group
that stands nearest, and a man's companions have the freest opportunity
to influence him during their common periods of recreation. The
influence of companions is not often met as a force deliberately exerted
to bring about desertion; but, on the other hand, a man's own mental
contrast between his condition and that of his unmarried companions
often plays a definite part in his decision to desert, if he has begun
to yearn for freedom. The influence of companions is particularly
connected with the "wanderlust" type of desertion.
6. Expectation of Charitable Relief.--It used to be held that many men
who would otherwise remain at home and support, might be encouraged to
desert if they had reason to believe that their wives and families would
be cared for in their absence. This was no doubt often the case before
social workers had learned to discriminate in treatment between deserted
wives and widows, or to press with vigor the search for deserting men.
At present, it is the experience of social workers that few men
deliberately reckon upon transferring the burden of their family's
support to others, or are induced by these considerations to leave.[14]
* * * * *
In trying to determine the cause for any given desertion it is well to
keep in mind from the beginning that there is probably more than one,
and that the obvious causes that first appear are almost certain
themselves to be the effects of more deeply underlying causes. A young
vaudeville actor of Italian parentage married a Jewish girl, a cabaret
singer, and took her home to live with his parents. Was his subsequent
desertion to be ascribed to difference in nationality and religion, to
interference of relatives, to irregular and unsettling occupation, or to
a combination of all three? Would all marriages so handicapped turn out
as badly? If not, what further factors entered to lower the threshold of
resistance to disintegration in this particular case?
This last question is after all the most important one of the foregoing
series. It is one which the social case worker must never be content to
leave unanswered.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] All names of deserters given throughout the text are pseudonyms.
[7] For an excellent discussion of the process of rationalization see
The Psychology of Insanity, Bernard Hart, Cambridge University Press,
1914.
[8] For a thoughtful discussion of this point see Eubank, E.E.: A Study
of Family Desertion. Chicago Department of Public Welfare, 1916.
[9] Brandt, Lilian: Family Desertion. The Charity Organization Society
of New York City, 1905.
[10] For a fuller discussion of forced marriages, see p. 92 sq.
[11] See also p. 98.
[12] See also p. 154.
[13] Two books may be suggested: Forel on The Sexual Question and
Havelock Ellis on Sex in Relation to Society (Vol. VI of Studies in the
Psychology of Sex).
[14] See p. 70 sq. for a discussion of collusive desertion.
III
CHANGES OF EMPHASIS IN TREATMENT
Unconsciously and imperceptibly, the point of view about the treatment
of desertion has been changing during the past fifteen years. The case
worker's attention used to be focussed on the danger of increasing the
desertion rate by a policy of too sympathetic care for deserters'
families. Little study was made of individual causes, and in so far as
there was a general policy of treatment it was to insist, wherever a
desertion law existed, that the deserted wife go at once to court and
institute proceedings against her husband. He was often not seen by the
social worker until he appeared in court. The policy toward the family
meantime was to reduce its size by commitment of the children until
their mother could support herself unaided; or, if relief was given, to
give smaller amounts than to a widow or the wife of a man in hospital.
As soon as the man had been placed under court order or had returned
home, old records generally show that the social worker's efforts were
relaxed, and often the final entry is, "Case closed--family
self-supporting."
There were excellent reasons underlying much of the practice. Few laws
were at that time in existence or at all adequately enforced, and any
man who desired was at liberty, so far as the community was concerned,
to walk off and leave his family at any time. The multiplicity of
sources of relief in the large communities and the absence of anything
resembling investigation constituted almost an invitation to men to
desert. It did not occur to the charitable public to draw any line
between the widow and the deserted wife, or indeed to inquire which of
these two a woman was, so long as she was a good mother and "seemed
worthy." No wonder that the pioneering social agencies, busy forging
tools out of the very ore, took a rigid stand on such a question of
social policy as this. Although their deterrents failed to eradicate the
evil of desertion or indeed to touch its sources, there is little doubt
that they did lessen its volume by creating a wholesome respect for the
power of the law in the mind of the would-be deserter and by fostering
in his wife a disposition to stand up for her rights. The more lenient
and more constructive policies now in force have been made possible in
part by these changes of attitude. The very fact that the collusive
desertion, once fairly common, is now seldom met with, illustrates the
salutary effects of the earlier methods of treatment.
But the fact remains that no marked change has been seen in the
desertion rate, that successive desertions have not been prevented in
individual cases. Hardly any statistical figure in the work of family
social agencies shows so little fluctuation from year to year and
between different cities, as the percentage of deserted families. It
generally forms from ten to fifteen per cent of the work of any such
society.
Gradually, therefore, the repressive features of the earlier treatment
have been abandoned, and there has come about a realization of the
complexity of causes that bring about family breakdowns. In particular,
the relation of sex maladjustments to failure in marriage have received
the serious attention of the social worker. On the question of court
intervention there has been almost a right-about face; the best social
practitioners now say, unhesitatingly and unequivocally, that they take
cases into court only as a matter of last resort, after case work
methods have been tried and have failed. In no other case where court
action is undertaken by one individual against another does the relation
between them remain unchanged. One could not conceive of a business
partnership failing to be annulled by one partner who brought suit
against another; yet we expect the marriage relation to survive this. As
a matter of fact, such is its vitality that it often does. But many
times the result of court action is only to deaden once and for all the
tiny spark from which marital happiness might have been rekindled. As
long as it survives, both man and wife feel in their inmost hearts that,
no matter what his offense, to "take him to court" is treason against
the intangible bonds that still hold between them. No matter how far
apart they have drifted, or how unforgivable has been the deserter's
offense, something irrevocable does happen to the fabric of marriage, a
few poor shreds of which may still exist between the two, when his wife
appears in a court of law to make complaint against him. It is an
instinctive realization that she is abandoning hope which underlies many
a woman's reluctance to "take a stand against her husband." Many social
workers (including some probation officers and court workers) now feel
that such a stand should be urged only in the full conviction that the
protection of the woman and children demands it, and that there is
nothing else to be done.
This must not, however, be interpreted as a criticism of the laws
concerning desertion or of the courts which administer them. If they
were not there in the background, ready to be taken advantage of when
all else fails, the social worker's hands would be tied, and the
possibility of a rich and flexible treatment of desertion problems would
be lost to her. It is precisely because they had no such recourse that
the case workers of an earlier day had to adopt a policy which now
seems rigid. It is because they were instrumental in securing better
laws and specialized courts that the latter day social worker can push
forward her own technique of dealing with homes that are disintegrating.
Another great change in emphasis has been upon the question of
interviewing the man, and of being sure that his side, or what he thinks
is his side, has been thoroughly understood. Social workers are under
conviction of sin in the matter of dealing too exclusively with the
woman of the family; in desertion cases it is more than desirable, it is
vitally necessary to have dealings with the man. Many social workers
feel that, at all events with a first desertion, they would rather take
the risk of having the man vanish a second time after having been found,
than have him arrested before an attempt to talk the matter out with
him. More stringent measures, they believe, can be resorted to
later--but the man must first be convinced that he will be listened to
patiently and with the intent to deal fairly. The case worker knows that
the power of the human mind to "rationalize" anti-social conduct is
infinite; and that, besides the few "justifiable deserters," there are
many who have succeeded in convincing themselves that their action is
warrantable. A deserter who could allege nothing else against his wife,
averred that he had placed under the bed two matches, crossed, and a
week later found them in the same position, proving his contention that
she was slovenly and did not keep the rooms clean.
The man who, aided by a sore conscience, has worked himself into such a
state of mind as this must be permitted to talk himself out before he
can be made to see the true state of affairs. In the minds of both man
and woman there is likely to be found a superstructure of suspicion,
jealousy, misinterpretation and distrust, built upon the basic fact of
their incompatibility, which has to be pulled down before the true
causes can be probed. To arrest a man in this state of mind is in his
eyes simply to "take sides" against him. Eventually he may have to be
arrested, but, in the case worker's experience, the chances of success
are ten to one if the man can be induced to take some voluntary step
toward reconciliation without the intervention of the law. In many
instances a real interview with the man, while not exonerating him,
would have thrown new light on the woman's statements.
A family social work society writes: A young woman with her mother
and little boy were referred for aid by a medical social department
because her husband had deserted and she was unable to work. The
doctors feared that her breakdown would result in insanity, so they
asked that her wishes be respected in not seeing the man's family.
She recovered, but it was later found that her husband, while not
doing all that he might for her, had been living at home a good deal
of the time and did not know that his family was in receipt of aid.
Some years ago a charity organization society, which maintained a
special bureau for treatment of desertion cases, was asked by a Mrs.
Clara Williams to help her find her husband, John, who had left her
some years previously and was living with another woman, so that she
might force him to contribute to the support of herself and her two
children. Mrs. Williams was a motherly appearing person who kept a
clean, neat home, and seemed to take excellent care of her children.
She was voluble concerning her husband's misdeeds and very bitter
toward him, which seemed only natural. The fact of the other
household was corroborated from other sources, and Mr. Williams'
work references indicated that he had been quarrelsome and difficult
for his employers to get along with, although a competent workman.
The problem seemed to the desertion agent a perfectly clear and
uncomplicated one and he proceeded to handle it according to the
formula. Some very clever detective work followed, in the course of
which the man was traced from one suburban city to another, and his
present place of employment found in the city where his wife lived,
although he lived just across the border of another state. The
warrant was served upon the man as he stepped from the train on his
way to work, and he appeared in the domestic relations court. He did
not deny the desertion but made some attempt to bring counter
charges against his wife. When questioned about his present mode of
living he became silent and refused to testify further. He was
placed under bond, which was furnished by the relatives of the woman
with whom he was living, to pay his wife $6.00 a week. No probation
was thought necessary and the case was closed, both the court and
the charity organization society crediting themselves with a case
successfully handled and terminated.
About a year later Mrs. Williams again applied, stating that her
husband's bond had lapsed, his payment had ceased, and that she had
no knowledge of his whereabouts. Although her home and children were
still immaculate she failed to satisfy the social worker who this
time visited her home with the plausible story which she had told
before. The children's health was not good and they seemed
unnaturally repressed and unhappy. Ugly reports that Mrs. Williams
drank came to the society. The school teacher deplored the effect
which the morbid nature of Mrs. Williams was having on her youngest
child--a daughter just entering adolescence. The son, a boy a little
older, was listless and unsatisfactory at his work, and defiant and
secretive toward any attempt to get to know him better. He spent
many nights away from home and was evidently not on good terms with
his mother. As soon as Mrs. Williams saw that real information was
desired she began indulging in fits of rage in which she displayed
such an exaggerated ego as to cause some doubts as to her mentality.
Baffled at every turn the case worker decided to interview the man,
if possible, to see if through him any clue to the situation might
be gained. The first step was to gain the confidence of a former
fellow-workman and friend of his who now maintained his own small
shop. This was done after several visits, the deserting husband
consenting to an evening meeting in his friend's shop.
A most illuminating interview followed. Mr. Williams was found to be
an intelligent though melancholy and self-centered man. The couple
had married somewhat late in life, it being Mrs. Williams' second
marriage. She had been strongly influenced by her mother to marry
him and had never had any real affection for him. It became very
evident from his story that the strongly developed egotism of both
the husband and wife had made a real marriage impossible between
them, and the visitor became convinced of the genuineness of Mr.
Williams' protestations that he endured the constant abuse and
ill-treatment of his wife as long as it had been possible to do so.
As her drinking habits took more hold upon her and he had realized
that the break was coming he had endeavored to place the children in
homes, and had once had his wife taken into court. There her
plausible story and good appearance resulted in the case being
dismissed with a reprimand to the husband. He then left home, but
continued to send her money at intervals, although as he got older
he was able to earn less at his trade. Socialism was his religion,
and it was his preaching of this doctrine in season and out to his
fellow workmen which had earned him the ill-will of his employers.
He defended his present mode of living, vigorously putting up a
strong argument that it was a real marriage, whereas the other had
only been a sham. He spoke in terms of affection of the woman who
was giving him the only real home he had ever known, and only wished
that the state of public opinion would permit his taking his young
daughter into his home. The boy, he realized, had grown entirely
away from him and they could never mean anything to each other. It
was his habit to make frequent trips back to the region where his
family lived in order that he might stand on the corner and watch
his children go by. He gave readily much information about his own
and his wife's past connections, including the addresses of many of
her relatives whose existence she had denied, and he successfully
proved that her claims as to his lapsed payments were false by
producing the entire series of post office receipts covering his
remittances to her and extending down to the very week of the
interview.[15]
There have been striking changes not only in the treatment of the
deserter but in that of his family. Writing in 1910, Miss Breed[16]
deprecates the habit of fostering the deserter's "easy-going conviction
that his family will get along somehow without him" by giving relief.
She approves offering full support in an institution, but is reluctant
to recommend any form of aid in the home, even from relatives. It is
better, she feels, to give entire support to some of the children in
foster homes, leaving the mother only those she can care for.
Much can be said for even so stringent a policy as this. An unstable
home, with a worthless father an intermittent member of the household,
is as bad an environment as children can have--its very fluctuations
making for nervous instability and a wrong point of view later on.
There is a possibility that other would-be deserters may be deterred by
temporarily breaking up the home, and that an occasional absconding
father may be brought back. But the fact remains that social workers
have, in practice, departed far from this point of view. Out of more
than twenty-five case workers of experience who were interviewed or
written to in preparation for this book, only one believed there had not
been a decided change toward a policy of more liberal relief.
One district secretary told of a woman who had more than once taken
back a disreputable husband whom she always professed to dislike.
Aid was given sparingly and intermittently during his absences; but
finally the woman in a burst of frankness told the secretary that
she had never felt confident the society would stand behind her.
Each time the man came back with money in his hand, she cheated
herself into believing that he meant "a new leaf." A budget was
worked out with her, and a promise given of an adequate income as
long as she kept her husband away. She has faithfully kept her side
of the bargain for over three years.
The extension in many states of "state aid to mothers" to cover
deserted wives is an indication of this changed view. In most states,
however, some safeguards are set up; the wife must take out a warrant,
and a given number of years must elapse during which the man shall not
have been heard from, before state aid can be granted to the wife.
Finally, it is more clearly recognized than formerly that the time to
"close the case" is not just after the man's return.
A case supervisor speaks of "the strong temptation to close our
records as soon as relief becomes unnecessary. The man's return to
the family is often the critical point at which there is need of
skilful and sympathetic friendship. These cases cry out for
continued treatment. We need to think more humanely about all the
unsettling elements in our urban civilization and to see that all
the nice individual adjustments that as case workers we can make are
made. If the man's work gives him no opportunity for
self-expression, what attempt are we making to give him such
opportunities outside his work, to connect him with a trade union,
with clubs and with fraternities? How much are we thinking about
cures for inebriates, psychoanalysis, vocational guidance,
recreation?"
Briefly, then, changes in the social worker's attitude toward treatment
have meant less emphasis on punitive and repressive measures, more
consideration of the man's point of view, less tendency to press court
action, at least in the beginning, fewer commitments of children, a more
liberal relief policy (partly as a preventive of "forced
reconciliations"), and lastly, longer supervision after the man has
resumed support of his family.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Adapted from the writer's article on "Desertion and Non-Support in
Family Case Work," _The Annals of the Academy of Political and Social
Science_, May, 1918, p. 98.
[16] Breed, Mary: Eleventh New York State Conference, 1910, p. 76.
IV
FINDING THE DESERTING HUSBAND
A few years ago a young Jewish woman reported to the National Desertion
Bureau[17] that her husband had left her and their children.
The couple had never got on well, and the man seemed to have been a
melancholy and impractical fellow. The usual methods of the Bureau
brought no results in finding the missing husband. Then the wife was
more carefully questioned, and urged to tell all that she could
recall or had heard about her husband's early life, his tastes and
peculiarities. Among other things the Bureau learned that the man's
father had died in America years ago, having come here to make a
home for the family left behind in Russia. The boy had grown up in
ignorance of the place of his father's death and burial, and, as the
eldest son, he felt it his duty to find his father's grave. Filled
with this idea he came to America as soon as he was grown and
landed in New York, but his few poor clues availed him little
against the difficulties of poverty and a new and complex
environment. In the end he gave up the search, married, and settled
down on the east side. After the sudden quarrel which led to his
leaving home, his wife thought it possible that his old obsession
might have reawakened. The Bureau, supplied with the clues in
question, had little difficulty in discovering the father's burial
place in St. Louis; and the cemetery authorities promised to send
word if the missing husband should appear. Sure enough, a short time
afterward he arrived, and, after visiting the grave, returned, not
unwillingly, and took up his family duties again under the
supervision of a probation officer.
The flexibility of method and the readiness to see and utilize new
resources which are displayed in the foregoing account are great assets
to the one who must institute search for a missing husband and father.
The thing that sets desertion cases apart in a class of peculiar
technical difficulty for the case worker is not simply that the man is
away from his family. There is no man to deal with in a widow's family,
but widows' families present comparatively simple problems. The
deserter, though absent, is still not only a potential but also a real
factor in the family situation. The plans of the family are often made
with one eye to his return; he is the unseen but plainly felt obstacle
to much that the social worker wants to accomplish. The children look
forward to his reappearance with dread or with joy (for many deserters
have a way with them, decidedly, and are welcome visitors to their
children). In short, he is usually at the key point in the situation. No
plan can safely be made that leaves him out, but--there's the rub!--you
cannot include him at once for he is not to be reached, certainly not at
the outset. The discovery of the deserter's whereabouts is not only the
first but the most urgent of the problems that confront the worker who
tries to deal with a deserted family. Unless he can be found the whole
plan rests upon shifting sand.
A prompt and vigorous effort to find the absentee is therefore a first
requisite in dealing with family desertion. Unfortunately, many case
workers, having started bravely and exhausted the first crop of clues,
become discouraged and fall back on the supposition that the man is
permanently out of the scene, and that it only remains to make plans for
the family. Numberless case histories attest the unwisdom of this
assumption. It is not making an extreme statement to say that, as long
as the family remains under active care or until the missing man is
proved to be dead, the effort to find him should not be abandoned. Mr.
Carstens, in discussing this point, says:
To carry on this search persistently is the great safeguard. It is
rare when in the course of a few months the true state of affairs
will not have been revealed, though it may have been quite hidden at
the start.[18]