ay whether the
growing irresponsibility that was generally recognized to be
threatening married life in the years before the war is still operating
with like effect, or whether the full tide of emotion in which the world
has been lately submerged may have swept at least a part of it away.

We are dealing here, however, not so much with modifications in the
spirit of the times, as with prevention in the individual case.

One very fundamental claim can be made concerning marital shipwrecks;
namely, that the way to prevent many of them would have been to see that
the marriage never was allowed to take place. Marriage laws and their
enforcement form a whole subject in themselves which is now receiving
careful study, the results of which should be available shortly.[52]
This fact precludes any discussion of the subject here, though the
relation of our marriage laws to marital discord is so obvious that some
mention of the matter is necessary.

It was formerly the belief of students of family desertion that the
best way to prevent desertions was to punish them quickly and severely.
It should be said that this plan has never received a fair trial on a
large scale, for legal equipment has always lagged behind knowledge. It
may be true that just as a community can, within limits, regulate its
death rate by what it is willing to pay, so it can by repressive
measures regulate its desertion rate. But measures that keep the
would-be deserter in the home which constantly grows less of a home,
simply through fear of consequences if he left it, seem hardly a
desirable form of prevention from the social point of view. It would be
much better to catch the disintegrating family in whatever form of
social drag-net could be devised, and deal with it individually and
constructively along the lines which case work has laid down.

Is it possible, however, to recognize a "pre-desertion state?" And if
so, what are the danger signals? One case worker answers this question
sententiously: "Any influences which tend to destroy family solidarity
are possible signs of desertion." Another writes: "We have sometimes
found it possible to recognize a 'pre-desertion state' in the
intermittent deserter, where we know the conditions which previously led
to desertion, but I doubt whether we have very often been able to note
it in the case of first desertions. In general, I should say a growing
carelessness or a growing despondency as to his ability to care