a factor in family breakdown, but also the possibilities
of good recreation as an aid in family reconstruction.

5. Influence of Companions.--As a factor in desertion this is closely
connected with the two just discussed. Neighborhood standards, as they
affect individuals, are apt to be transmitted through the small group
that stands nearest, and a man's companions have the freest opportunity
to influence him during their common periods of recreation. The
influence of companions is not often met as a force deliberately exerted
to bring about desertion; but, on the other hand, a man's own mental
contrast between his condition and that of his unmarried companions
often plays a definite part in his decision to desert, if he has begun
to yearn for freedom. The influence of companions is particularly
connected with the "wanderlust" type of desertion.

6. Expectation of Charitable Relief.--It used to be held that many men
who would otherwise remain at home and support, might be encouraged to
desert if they had reason to believe that their wives and families would
be cared for in their absence. This was no doubt often the case before
social workers had learned to discriminate in treatment between deserted
wives and widows, or to press with vigor the search for deserting men.
At present, it is the experience of social workers that few men
deliberately reckon upon transferring the burden of their family's
support to others, or are induced by these considerations to leave.[14]

* * * * *

In trying to determine the cause for any given desertion it is well to
keep in mind from the beginning that there is probably more than one,
and that the obvious causes that first appear are almost certain
themselves to be the effects of more deeply underlying causes. A young
vaudeville actor of Italian parentage married a Jewish girl, a cabaret
singer, and took her home to live with his parents. Was his subsequent
desertion to be ascribed to difference in nationality and religion, to
interference of relatives, to irregular and unsettling occupation, or to
a combination of all three? Would all marriages so handicapped turn out
as badly? If not, what further factors entered to lower the threshold of
resistance to disintegration in this particular case?

This last question is after all the most important one of the foregoing
series. It is one which the social case worker must never be content to
leave unanswe