protested against. In every State
in the Union where they exist they have been protested against by
organized groups of intelligent women. But their protests have been
received with apathy, and, in some instances, with contempt by
legislators. Only last year a determined fight was made by the women of
California for a law giving them equal guardianship of their children.
The women's bill was lost in the California Legislature, and lost by a
large majority.

What arguments did the California legislators use against the proposed
measure? Identically the same that were made in Massachusetts and New
York a quarter of a century ago. If women had the guardianship of their
children, would anything prevent them from taking the children and
leaving home? What would become of the sanctity of the home, with its
lawful head shorn of his paternal dignity? In California a husband is
head of the family in very fact, or at least a law of the State says so.

At one time the law which made the husband the head of the home
guaranteed to the family support by the husband. It does not do that
now. There are laws on the statute books of many States obliging the
wife to support her husband if he is disabled, and the children, if the
husband defaults. There are no laws compelling the husband to support
his wife. The husband is under an assumed obligation to support his
family, but there exists no means of forcing him to do his duty. Family
desertion has become one of the commonest and one of the most baffling
of modern social problems. Everybody is appalled by its prevalence, but
nobody seems to know what to do about it. The Legal Aid Society of New
York City reports about three new cases of family desertion for every
day in the year. Other agencies in other cities report a state of
affairs quite as serious.

Laws have been passed in most States making family desertion a
misdemeanor, and in New York a recent law has made it a felony.
Unfortunately there has been devised no machinery to enforce these laws,
so they are practically non-existent. It is true that if the deserting
husband is arrested he may be sent to jail or to the rock pile.

But that does not cure him nor support his family. Mostly he is not
arrested. He has only to take himself out of the reach of the local
authorities. In New York a deserting husband, though he is counted a
felon, needs only to cross the river to New Jersey to be reasonably
safe. Imagine the State of New Yo