Life — September 18, 1890 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "A Chance for Him" - Life Magazine, September 18, 1890 This cartoon satirizes a domestic conversation about jewelry and marital promises. The caption reveals the joke: A wife reminds her husband he promised to ask for no more jewelry "this year." The husband asks why this matters, and she responds that if he would buy her a pearl necklace, she could then buy *him* a wife. The satire targets the husband's apparent inadequacy or undesirability as a spouse—suggesting the wife would trade him for someone better if given the financial means. It's a joke about marital dissatisfaction and the transactional nature of 1890s marriage, where jewelry and material goods were central to spousal relations. The humor relies on the wife's cutting retort implying she'd replace him entirely.