Judge — March 16, 1901 — page 5: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This 1901 Judge cartoon satirizes marital instability through a pun. Mr. Jones finds humor in a newspaper case about a man married seven times—the joke being that this man's surname is "Bliss," making his repeated marriages ironically contradictory. The implication is that if marriage brought genuine happiness (bliss), one wouldn't need to remarry seven times. Mrs. Jones's deadpan response—that she sees nothing funny about serial marriage itself—underscores the cartoon's point: there's dark comedy in the disconnect between the man's name and his matrimonial track record. The elegant drawing style and domestic setting reflect Judge's upper-class audience, for whom marital scandals provided entertainment and fodder for social commentary.