Judge — March 5, 1921 — page 4: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This illustration by Walter De Maris depicts a domestic dispute scene. The caption reads: "Why do you object to being engaged to Eddie?" "I don't object to being engaged to him. But the poor nut wants me to marry him." The satire targets early 20th-century attitudes about marriage and courtship. The joke centers on a woman distinguishing between being "engaged" (a long, potentially indefinite state) and actually marrying. She's willing to accept the engagement's social benefits and attention but refuses the commitment of marriage itself—suggesting either reluctance about the specific suitor or skepticism toward marriage generally. The man ("Eddie," dismissively called a "nut") apparently expects engagement to lead naturally to matrimony, highlighting period tensions between romantic expectation and female autonomy.