THE WIFE DESERTER.

Observer, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10, 16 November 1912, Page 3

THE WIFE DESERTER.

What Shall We Do With Him ?

FOE some years past New Zealand has had reciprocity with Australia in the matter of wife-de-:serters and similar offenders, and the ease with which exchanges of levanting husbands have been made has proved a considerable deterrent to such indesirable practices. But it is now observed that the New South Wales Government intends to go further in making inter-State action easier still, and the penalties more stringent, and further, it has an intention of putting into practice the good idea of making offenders, when convicted and sentenced, to earn their own living in gaol and a bit over for the maintenance of their wives and offspring. The Bill is now before the Legislative Assembly and it is to be hoped that it will be passed—the idea is good enough to be accepted here, with extensions.

Where the modern punitive, or reformative, treatment of offender fails is in that it not only punishes the offending male, but heaps undeserv.ed hardship on the temporarily widowed woman and on children. If a woman's husband happens to break the law sufficiently to bring him an award •of prolonged detention in His Majesty's prisons, she has to take to the -Charitable Aid Board or the washtub, or both—usually she leaves -charitable.aid as a last resource and -tries to make good on her energy. There are plenty of men, not wife-de-serters, who would be glad of a chance of providing some help for their families while undergoing sentence, ;and they should have the chance .-equally with that type of male who ias to be forced to maintain his wife.

If it is true that society must revenge it3elf on the criminal (which isn't at all certain) it doesn't follow that it must revenge itself through the criminals' dependants, which wsa an old Asiatic custom. Society or the "State (whichever term is preferable) ias a duty towards mothers and children and if the bread-winner is taken from the mother and children, no matter whether the cause is the man's offence against the law, the State should make some provision for them. It does so in the case of widows, ;and in the case of -the dependents of a -man undergoing imprisonment the .most just means of making provision would be to set the man at tasks •whereby he could earn something for their support and his own. It must be admitted that the case of the wife of a long-sentence prisoner is harder than of a widow—she has no pension :rights and as.a rule she has certain -pronounced objections to appealing to -charity.

It is apparently the intention of the New South Wales Bill to make provision for those other defaulters whose crime is every whit as mean as that of the wife-deserter, the men who flee from the prospect of helping to support their illegitimate children .as the righteous do from the wrath to come. Such gentlemen, together with the person whose wife is separated from him and who fails to disburse on "his maintenance order, are probably !also to be given the chance of working off arrears while sojourning in •gaol, and it is to be supposed that they : may be detained until they work off .all they owe. The sticklers for the punitive system of gaoling, as opposed to the reformative system, may argue, rightly enough, that for the ordinary Jaw-breaker, not the habitual criminal, the knowledge that his wife is unprovided for is intensified punishment, but is there any need or reason for intensifying punishment ? Surely .disciplinary confinement is sufficient ?

There can be no reasonable argument why a man should not, during -the term of his sentence, help his unfortunate wife and family with the proceeds of his labour, at the sam< B time contributing to the cost of his detention. Besides these points mentioned, there are other reasons why such law should get en the Statvite 3ook, and they can be discovered by

any one who cares. Meanwhile, the self and family supporting prisoner is an idea worthy of commending to our legislators and it is commended accordingly.