Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment by Joanna C. Colcord
page 29 of 158 (18%)
page 29 of 158 (18%)
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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 |
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