his will and to increase his capacity--a far more complicated
task.

"The deserter is likely to have less justification than the
non-supporter," says an observer of long experience. Studies which have
been made of the relative capacity of the wives of deserters and of
non-supporters seem to agree that the latter have the weaker characters
and are less competent and successful workers. A comment made upon one
such study points out the impossibility of sound conclusions, if both
chronic and incipient cases are included in the two groups. The
progressive demoralization in the family of the "intermittent husband"
makes such a study of little value unless this distinction is taken into
account.

The influence of ill-kept homes in the manufacture of non-supporting
husbands has been widely recognized.

A drunkard's daughter, who had never known a decent home, married a
young man who soon began to drink too. Luckily, the young couple
were brought in touch with a volunteer visitor who, on finding that
the wife possessed only two kitchen utensils, a teakettle and a
"frypan," and actually did not know the names of any others,
undertook to give her lessons in home management. She proved
teachable, and her husband stopped drinking and braced up. Some
years later the visitor was able to report a well established home,
although the family refused to move out of the poor neighborhood in
which they lived because the husband had been elected councilman for
that district.

If the inefficient wife contributes her share to this form of family
breakdown so also does the overefficient one. Many a non-supporter got
his first impulse in that direction when his wife became a wage-earner
in some domestic crisis. "There's only one rule for women who want to
have decent homes for their children and themselves," advised a wise
neighbor. "If your husband comes home crying, and says he can't find any
work, sit down on the other side of the fire and cry until he
_does_."[42]

One case worker comments on the relation that often exists between an
inefficient husband and an unusually competent wife, made up of a
motherly toleration on her side and a tacit acceptance on his that he is
not expected to be the provider. "Sort of a landlady's husband" was the
apt description of one such man, the speaker having in mind the "silent
partner" who does odd jobs around his wife's furnished-room house. The
lovable o