Judge, 1900-11-17 · page 5 of 16
Judge — November 17, 1900 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes divorce difficulty in early 20th-century America. Two women—identified as "Gladys" and "Beatrice"—discuss marriage problems. Gladys sympathizes about being married to an unloved man; Beatrice agrees, adding that divorcing "goody-goody" (respectable, morally upstanding) husbands is especially frustrating. The joke targets the legal and social barriers to divorce during this era. Even when marriages were unhappy, women faced difficulty obtaining divorces, particularly from men with good reputations who could contest proceedings. The cartoon mocks both the absurdity of being trapped in loveless marriages and the hypocrisy of supposedly virtuous men fighting to keep their wives legally bound. This reflects genuine Progressive-era debates over divorce reform and women's marital rights.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ANOTHER OBJECTION, Giapys—" It must be a terrible thing to be married to a man you cannot possibly love.” Teatxice—" Oh, yes; and it is so hard getting a divorce from those gooly-goody chaps, too, you know.” comicbooks.com