"The deserter is likely to have less justification than the non-supporter," says an observer of long experience. Studies which have been made of the relative capacity of the wives of deserters and of non-supporters seem to agree that the latter have the weaker characters and are less competent and successful workers. A comment made upon one such study points out the impossibility of sound conclusions, if both chronic and incipient cases are included in the two groups. The progressive demoralization in the family of the "intermittent husband" makes such a study of little value unless this distinction is taken into account. The influence of ill-kept homes in the manufacture of non-supporting husbands has been widely recognized. A drunkard's daughter, who had never known a decent home, married a young man who soon began to drink too. Luckily, the young couple were brought in touch with a volunteer visitor who, on finding that the wife possessed only two kitchen utensils, a teakettle and a "frypan," and actually did not know the names of any others, undertook to give her lessons in home management. She proved teachable, and her husband stopped drinking and braced up. Some years later the visitor was able to report a well established home, although the family refused to move out of the poor neighborhood in which they lived because the husband had been elected councilman for that district. If the inefficient wife contributes her share to this form of family breakdown so also does the overefficient one. Many a non-supporter got his first impulse in that direction when his wife became a wage-earner in some domestic crisis. "There's only one rule for women who want to have decent homes for their children and themselves," advised a wise neighbor. "If your husband comes home crying, and says he can't find any work, sit down on the other side of the fire and cry until he _does_."[42] One case worker comments on the relation that often exists between an inefficient husband and an unusually competent wife, made up of a motherly toleration on her side and a tacit acceptance on his that he is not expected to be the provider. "Sort of a landlady's husband" was the apt description of one such man, the speaker having in mind the "silent partner" who does odd jobs around his wife's furnished-room house. The lovable old rascal portrayed by Frank Bacon in his play "Lightnin'" is typical of this kind of husband.