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.