Life, 1884-06-26 · page 11 of 17
Life — June 26, 1884 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Wife Safe Deposit Company" — Life Magazine Satire This is satirical commentary on married life and gender relations in Gilded Age America. The piece mocks a fictional company proposing to warehouse wives while husbands travel on business or socialize. The satire targets **married men's complaints**: wives increase expenses, prevent socializing, demand social calls on wealthy relatives (hoping to be remembered in wills), and monopolize evenings at opera and concerts. The "solution" — a secure facility staffed entirely by women, surrounded by walls with broken glass and trained mice — is obviously absurd. The cartoons depict the chaos of wives and children overwhelming husbands, illustrating their desperation. References to *The Princess* (likely Tennyson's poem about women's education) and pricing brunettes higher than blondes add layers of period-specific absurdity about women's perceived value. The piece ultimately mocks both husbands' selfishness and the era's assumptions about wives as impediments to male leisure and ambition.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
* LIFE: THE WIFE SAFE DEPOSIT COMPANY. E understand that a project has been formed for the establishment of a corporation with the name which appears above. From the prospectus, which has been sent us, we see no reason why the plan should not meet with favor, and obtain complete suc- cess. It surely is something entirely novel, and is without rivals in the field. The scheme to which we al- lude merits a few words of exegesis. A man leav- ing this city for a few days, to go to Philadel- phia on busi- ness, or to visit Boston for a little intel- lectual ozone, is often at loss to know just what to do with his wife. Incidentally to his business in the Quaker City, the home of motors that do not mote, he may have opportunities for cultivating the society of friends who would like to entertain him. If he takes his wife with him, his expenses are doubled, and he has to do the en- tertaining himself. It is difficult to know just when a musical festival, or a manager’s benefit with the cheapest tickets placed at six dollars each, is to occur. Of course your wife would desire to attend. Thus after a wéary day at work (massé shots barred), you are ‘deprived of your natural rest at night. For you can get but little rest even in the most se- cluded box at the opera, warranted to afford posi- tively no view of the stage. If you go to Boston alone, and your friend talks transcendentalism to you, slumber is sweet and re- freshing and prompt. But if you have your wife with you, she thinks it proper to go and call on your uncle BEWARE OF THE IT WATEH WOMAN 361 who lives in Uncommon-wealth-avenue, so that he may remember her in his will. The uncle on the avenue is rich. Thus you are placed between the horns of a delemma, and the horns of a dilemma are not exhilarat- ing. But a way out of these difficulties is provided by the Wife Safe Deposit Company. The building secured by the company is ten stories in height, with no fire escapes. This will recommend it at the outset. The custo- dians, door-keepers, clerks, in fact the entire personnel of the establishment will be women. Those who have read Zhe Princess will see the perfect feasibility of relying for help solely on the softer sex in the management of the enterprise. To prevent shopping excursions, the building will be surrounded with a high wall, with broken glass on the top, and trained mice running along its edges. This wall, it is needless to say, will present insur- mountable difficulties to those attempting escape. The institution will be a blessing to the impecunious hus- band. He will conduct his wife thither, get a check for her, and leave her there until his return to the city. There will be a system of regular rates for lodgings. Blondes will be charged twenty-five dollars per week, and brunettes thirty. It is stated in the prospectus that this excess of charge for brunettes will explain it- self. But we confess it is enigmatical to us. Caramels, fashion-papers, and parrots, extra. Parrots instructedin Eng- lish by sailors or members of the Union Club are excluded. Pi- anos in every room. This will give unprece- dented opportu- nities for getting up the music that so promptly was dropped with the maiden name. A new lease of life may be afforded Chopin’s Opus 69, or some simi- lar gem, which was so largely instrumental in securing that greatest of all prizes—a good husband. Thus the romance of early days will return. Among other advantages of the institution, the fol- lowing may be remarked: No_house-furnishers, milliners, modistes, coiffeurs, manicures, church-mortg- age-raisers, nor diamond, merchants will be admitted comicbooks.com