| 29.7
United States--colored | 11.2 | 5.6
Irish | 9.7 | 14.7
Other British | 5.0 | 4.7
German | 6.2 | 6.2
Italian | 20.2 | 28.0
Austrian | 5.5 | 4.8
Russian | 2.8 | 1.0
Polish | 3.3 | 1.2
Other | 5.5 | 4.1
----------------------------------------------------
| 100.0 | 100.0

3. Community Standards.--It cannot be too emphatically stated that any
tendency in the community to belittle or ridicule the estate of
matrimony has a definite cumulative effect on desertion. The "when a
man's married" series in the comic supplements, certain comic films in
the moving picture shows, the form of drama popularly called "bedroom
farce" are examples of these destructive forces. Most of the people who
laugh at them accept them as a humorous formula and are not seriously
affected by them; but their educational effect on young people is bound
to be bad and false to the last degree. In so far as they overemphasize
romantic love and disparage conjugal love, the theater and the popular
press do this generation great disservice.

Another way in which the community may affect the popular conception of
marriage is in the administration of civil marriage. Lack of care in
enforcing the laws and lack of gravity in performing the ceremonies may
have a decided reaction on respect for those laws and for the
institution itself. Similarly, the administration of divorce laws may
affect the popular conception of marriage. One entire neighborhood
condoned the situation in which a deserted wife immediately went to live
with another man, on the ground that "if they had been rich, they could
have got a divorce."

4. Lack of Proper Recreation.--This may seem a subject to be
discussed under personal factors; but proper recreation, after all,
depends in large measure upon what the community provides or makes
available. The American tendency for the man to get his recreation apart
from his family, in saloons and social clubs, is responsible for many
family maladjustments. Any change in family habits of recreation which
means that the man and wife enjoy fewer things together is a danger
signal the seriousness of which is not always appreciated. Social
workers are inclined to undervalue not only the influence of faulty
recreation as