Judge, 1913-05-03 · page 13 of 24
Judge — May 3, 1913 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece mocks the emerging divorce culture and moral inconsistency of wealthy society around the early 1900s. A lady of leisure discusses her impending divorce with her French maid, Rene, claiming she and her husband "are not in love with each other." The joke's bitter irony: Rene then reveals she was abandoned by a man who married for money instead of love. The lady offers platitudes about finding someone "honorable and not mercenary." Rene's final retort exposes the hypocrisy—the lady herself is divorcing to presumably pursue the "tall blond gentleman," essentially engaging in the same mercenary calculation she condemned. The cartoon satirizes how wealthy women rationalize divorce through romantic language ("affinity of the soul") while actually pursuing financial or social advantage. The "substitution" is one romantic entanglement simply replacing another.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SUBSTI «4 PARDON, madam; but m’sieur, your husband, he has not been in the house for a week. He is out of the city, perhaps?” “No, Rene. We have separated. We are to be divorced.” “Oh! “We find we are not in love with each other.” “Perhaps madam fancy the tall blond gentleman who frequently all and sing for her?” “Ah, Rene! 1 wonder if you can understand being in love with the husband of another! Have you ever been in love?” “Once, madam.” “Only once?” “Yes, madam, It was about one year ago, just before madam emplay me. | was in a manicure shop down town, and he came TUTION there every day. We had what he call ‘affinity of the soul’ for ‘one another, even from the first time of meeting. Pretty soon he took me out to dinner, then again—and ah, madam, it was wonderful when he first kiss me! Then one day he tol’ me he was to be mar- ried to a woman with much money, and it was so.” “Perhaps it’s for the best, Rene. There may be another lover waiting around the corner for you who will be honorable and not mercenary in his love. The other was not worthy. Be thankful that he did not marry you.” “But he is going to marry me, madam.” “Why, you just now said he married the woman with the money!" “Did not madam just now say she was to be divorced?” —Ray Rohn. comicbooks.com