Although the term “forced marriage” has come to have the meaning given above, unions can be really forced where there has been no sex relation before marriage.  In one unhappy marriage which came finally to a court of domestic relations, the wife was a weak and timid woman who married her husband because of her fear that he would carry out his threat and kill her and himself if she refused him.  Another, an Italian girl, was married at fourteen by her parents against her inclinations to a well-to-do man, much older than she, who was a lodger in the family.  As she grew to womanhood their incompatibility increased; finally, after four children had been born, the family was broken up and the children committed to institutions.

There are compulsions and false motives, operating to bring about marriages, which spring from within not without; and the discovery of any motive for the marriage except mutual inclination has significance to the case worker.  Light was thrown on the troubles of one young couple when the girl confessed that she had married a youth for whom she had no particular affection, in order to “spite” her relatives and assert her right to do as she chose.  And the unfortunate young woman who married a street evangelist in a fit of religious enthusiasm, and because of his promise that they would travel about the world saving souls together, had a married life both short and stormy.  The so-called “slacker marriages” of the few months preceding the first draft in 1917 illustrate this point.  The wreckage of these marriages is already drifting in increasing amount to the courts of domestic relations.

One of the most important items in desertion cases, and one far too often neglected, is the verification of the marriage.  Much seeming indifference and confusion on this point is probably caused by the quasi-legality in many states of common law marriages.  The case worker should not forget, however, that a common law union is often only a device on the part of one or the other of the two to avoid prosecution for bigamy.  When it is established that the marriage is a common law union, a strong suspicion should be set up in the worker’s mind that there may be some legal barrier to a ceremony, and careful inquiry should be directed along this line.  Not only does the verification of a marriage give the worker a sound basis on which to proceed to court action if necessary, but the copy of the actual marriage record, where that can be procured, gives much valuable information as to dates, addresses, and names of relatives and witnesses.  A transcript of the record will usually be furnished by the registrar of vital statistics in the city where the marriage took place (if in the United States) for a nominal fee of fifty cents.

It is much more difficult to verify marriages which took place in other countries, and social workers are often appalled by the prevalence of the so-called “American marriage” among immigrant deserters, who trust to our happy-go-lucky methods for protection against a prosecution for bigamy.