|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 30
"The wholesale attempt to patch the tattered fabric of family life
in a series of hurried interviews held in the court room, and
without any information about the problem except what can be gained
from the two people concerned, can hardly be of permanent value in
most cases. It is natural that case workers, keenly aware as they
are of the slow and difficult processes involved in
character-rebuilding, look askance at the court-made
reconciliations. With the best will in the world, the people who
attempt this delicate service very often have neither the time nor
the facts about the particular case in question to give the skilful
and devoted personal service necessary to reconstruction. As a
result many weak-willed wrong-doers are encouraged to take a pledge
of good conduct which they will not, or cannot, keep; and other
individuals who feel themselves deeply wronged go away with an
additional sense of those wrongs having been underestimated and of
having received no redress. The results are written in
discouragement and in repeated failures to live in harmony, each of
which makes a permanent solution more and more difficult. The case
worker to whom the results of the externally imposed reconciliation
come back again and again has reason to be confirmed in a distrust
of short-cut methods."[36]
* * * * *
A probation officer writes: "Superficial reconciliations invariably
result unsatisfactorily. In one case a reconciliation was effected
before the husband was released on probation. This was done
apparently in the hope that it would influence the court in the
disposition of the case. After a study of the situation had been
made by the probation officer, it was found that the wife was
totally incompetent as a housekeeper, that she possessed an
antagonistic disposition, had a violent temper, and that no sincere
attachment for each other existed between the couple. Before any
constructive measures could be carried out by the probation officer
to remedy this situation they separated, and it was not possible
thereafter to adjust the differences with any degree of
satisfaction.
"On another occasion a man who had a previous prison record and had
displayed criminal tendencies was arrested for desertion. His wife,
a feeble-minded woman with one child, was being maintained at a
private institution at county expense. Through the efforts of the
district attorney a reconciliation was effected before the case was
disposed of in court, and the man was placed on probation upon the
recommendation of the prosecutor without the usual preliminary
investigation by the probation department. The couple began to live
together contrary to the advice of the probation officer. About two
months later the man was arrested for committing a series of
burglaries and the woman was found to be pregnant. Efforts which had
been made by the probation department to determine her mentality
disclosed her to be feeble-minded; later she was committed to a
custodial institution for feeble-minded women of child-bearing age.
The man was committed to a state prison."
However, when youth and high temper seem to have caused the trouble and
there is real affection to build upon, a speedy resumption of life
together is usually the best thing.
A young woman with one baby said that her husband had got drunk and
threatened her with a knife. They quarreled and he went to relatives
in another city. Neighbors testified how devoted the couple had been
to each other, describing the young man as handy about the house
though "lazy about finding work." He was visited by the family
social agency in the city to which he had gone, and wrote a penitent
letter asking to come home. The wife agreed; the man immediately
returned, got work, and succeeded in overcoming his incipient bad
habits. The death of the baby soon after his return seemed only to
draw the couple more closely together. The case was soon after
closed; nothing has been heard in the three years since to indicate
that any further trouble has developed.
A study recently made under the auspices of the Philadelphia Court of
Domestic Relations seems to show somewhat better results from court
reconciliations than might have been expected. One thousand and two
couples who were reconciled in court during the year 1916 were visited
from six to eighteen months later. Three hundred and ten had separated
or had had further differences which brought them to court; 87 could not
be found, and 605, or about 60 per cent, were found to be still living
together, though with a varying degree of marital happiness, as the
report somewhat drily states.[37]
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|