wife's protestations of fear or aversion are genuine, we should hardly
take the risk of revealing her address if she wishes it kept secret.
This precaution applies not only to the man but to anyone whom we
suspect of being interested on his behalf. A district secretary
continued to refuse the address of his family to a dangerous epileptic
deserter who threatened the secretary's life and, in the opinion of
physicians who examined him, was likely to carry out his threat.

The committee on difficult cases in a family social agency voted to
refuse to accept voluntary payments from a thoroughly worthless
deserter and transmit them to his wife whose address he was seeking
to learn, on the theory that it was better for her and her children
to be entirely quit of him, and that nothing would make him realize
the finality of the decision more than to refuse his money. The
agency, it was felt, would be in better position to protect the wife
and children if it refused to act as post office for the man.

The same consideration might apply in questions of extradition. When the
whereabouts of a deserter of this type has been discovered in another
city a safe distance away, it may be wiser to sacrifice the money he
might be forced to contribute than to have him brought within arm's
length of his wife and family.

A prime difficulty in dealing with the undesirable husband who is
willing to come home is often the attitude of the wife. Some of the
causes at work when a woman takes her husband back have been discussed
earlier.[35] Unfortunately, hopelessly bad husbands profit by them as
well as hopeful ones. The policy of niggardly relief to a deserted wife
has undoubtedly been responsible for many of these unfortunate attempts
to patch up a life together. "She was worn down by her efforts to keep