Judge — October 13, 1906 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Recipe for Wedding-Cake" This cartoon by James Montgomery Flagg satirizes the commercialization of weddings. A cherub (Cupid) in a chef's hat presides over kitchen implements and ingredients—a mixing bowl, pitcher, sugar jar, and scattered coins—while holding an open cookbook. The caption reads: "Cupid—'Funny, but these up-to-date cook-books call for a lot of this!'" The joke targets how modern weddings had become expensive, profit-driven affairs. Rather than romance or love, the "recipe" now requires money—represented by the coins spilling across the table. The cartoon mocks how commercialization has reduced marriage to a financial transaction, with even Cupid (the symbol of love itself) bewildered by the monetary costs involved in contemporary wedding ceremonies and celebrations.