Judge, 1912-08-10 · page 8 of 24
Judge — August 10, 1912 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This piece by William J. Lampton satirizes the inconsistency of divorce laws across American states and the absurdity of repeated marriages. The narrative describes a man who divorces his wife. A court forbids him from remarrying—but he escapes to another state with laxer laws and marries again. He divorces a second time, then attempts a third marriage via justice of the peace instead of church, hoping to "change his luck." The satire's punch: the constable witnessing this third ceremony struggles with the theological/legal contradiction: if each marriage makes two people "one," which woman is the *real* one? How many are actually two women? The cartoon at top shows a mother proudly presiding over her daughter's wedding, suggesting women benefit materially from marriages (gifts, status) more than grooms do—a cynical commentary on marriage as transaction. The joke exposes how easily men exploited jurisdictional gaps in marriage and divorce law, and mocks the gap between religious doctrine ("what God hath joined") and legal reality.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
— A MODERN APPLICATION. Muriel. Gladys—** Yes ; it is more blessed to give than to receive.’ “ Mrs. Smith-Brown actually seems more radiant over her daughter's wedding than the groom himself."" Our Marriage Conditions. “ HOM God hath joined together, let no man put asunder,"’ an- nounced the minister of the Gospel, when the sacred ceremony had been per- formed making that twain one flesh. And no man did. It was the woman. She sued the man for a divorce and got it. The court decreed that the man should not marry again. “Marriages are made in heaven,"’ said the man, so respectfully that the court could not fine him for con- tempt. “Heaven is not in the jurisdiction of this court,’’ said the judge on the bench, with a judicial wave of the hand that dispensed justice alike to mendicant and million- aire. Whereupon the man went to heaven or some other beatific state where the laws of a sister state count for naught, and he took unto himself another wife. By WILLIAM J. LAMPTON ‘*Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder,"’ announced the officiating clergyman solemnly, as the other had done. But aman did. He sued the woman for a divorce and got it. The court placed no interdiction upon his marrying again, and presently he was up for his third offense. But not before a clergy- man. This time he thought he would try a justice of the peace, to change his luck. “You are one,’’ said the magistrate who performed the ceremony of unifica- tion in his habitually for- THE WIFE'S DISCOVERY. “* Well, if them ain't William’s tracks!" mal and legal manner. A humble constable in attendance bowed the le- gal unit out into the wide world of multiplication and division. “By heck!" he ex- claimed, rubbing his fur- rowed brow in confused contemplation. ‘‘It's too many for me! If that man and the other woman was one, and the same man and another woman is one, which one is the real one and how many are the two women? Say, Tom,’ he appealed to the gray cat snoozing in the sun, ‘‘is marriages made in heaven, or where?” comicbooks.com