FAMILY DESERTION One cause of distress of which we are becoming increas ingly aware in recent years, probably because it is in creasingly frequent, is the desertion of wife and children by their natural and legally responsible breadwinner. In the first flurry of astonishment at such an extraordinary phenomenon as desertion by heads of families of their vol untarily assumed responsibilities, there was much specula tion as to the motives which could have led to it. All the influences which affect human conduct would appear to be arrayed against it. Conjugal and parental love, the sanc tions of religion, the good opinion of friends and neigh bors, the most elementary sense of responsibility for one's own express and implied enjoyments, the expectation of aid and support from offspring in later life, the present assistance of the wife under ordinary circumstances and her care and comfort in illness or adversity, form a most formidable array of positive motives against vagabondage on the part of a man with wife and children. The eco nomic advantages lie mainly on the same side. The fugitive from justice — in every state the law provides some method, however defective, either criminal or civil, for reaching the deserter—is at a disadvantage in securing and retaining employment, and a knowledge of his failure to care for his own will everywhere outweigh any number of other virtues.
Why then do men abandon their families, and is there a remedy for the evil ? Let us consider first a few excep tional cases in order that we place due emphasis upon the fact that they are exceptional, although actual, illustrations of that desertion which leads directly to destitution and to applications for charitable assistance on the part of the deserted family.
136 An intemperate man whose wife was also intemperate, and whose home was therefore neglected and unattractive, came under the influence of a temperance reformer and was induced to take the pledge. In order that he might the more easily keep it, employment was found for him is the country at a distance from his family and his former companions. He became a sober and industrious laborer,
but in the process he gradually formed new associations and tastes, and in the end completely ignored and aban doned both wife and children. Those who are tabulating the causes of distress often glibly put down " intemper ance," because it is easier than to analyze the rather com plicated conditions•of which intemperance is but one. It would be equally faulty, but not more so, to describe the desertion in this instance as due to sobriety. It was, of course, due to other moral defects which were unfortu nately not corrected along with the cure of the drink habit.
Another family came under the notice of a charitable society on the desertion of its nominal head. Investigation eventually established the fact that this desertion was a return to his legitimate wife and children of whom the woman that made the application for aid knew nothing. To leave the second family and return to the first was a legal and moral duty; and on the superficial method of tab ulating causes, this case of desertion might be described as due to sudden fidelity to the marital relation, although the earlier infidelity of course lies behind it.
The desertion of a Russian Jewess by her Chinese husband is perhaps not so surprising as the fact of their marriage. The desertion of Protestant wives by Catholic husbands, and of Catholic wives by Protestant husbands is a little more common, as might be expected, than desertion by those who are of the same household of faith as their wives. Desertions occur in marriages of mixed nationalities and races, according to some statistics which cover, however, only a few and possibly not representative desertions, somewhat more frequently than in others, although the difference is not sufficient to justify particular emphasis upon such marriages as an explanation.