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Page 14
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.
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