Life, 1900-06-07 · page 13 of 28
Life — June 7, 1900 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous domestic story-cartoon satirizing the "New Woman" movement of the early 20th century. **The Setup:** Weak-willed Mr. Tipton is bullied by his wife into household tasks. During a sailing trip, he finally asserts authority—commanding the yacht during a storm while Mrs. Tipton clings to his legs in fear and admiration. **The Satire:** The story mocks conventional gender roles by suggesting that *both* parties actually want the husband to dominate. When Tipton declares he'll no longer shop, hire servants, or buy clothes at his wife's whim, Mrs. Tipton responds with rapture: "I've been hoping for years that you would talk that way to me." **The Joke:** Despite contemporary discourse about women's independence and rights, the story suggests wives secretly desire authoritarian husbands. The title "Reconstructed Husband" ironically means a husband who has "reconstructed" his masculine authority—precisely the opposite of progressive change. This reflects anti-feminist anxieties of the era.
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The leech of the mainsail hit Tipton in the head and knocked off the cap his wife had purchased for him the week before, and he smiled as he saw it sailing off to leeward. Vanton shrank down in the bottom of the cockpit, and Mrs. Tipton convulsively hela on to Tipton’s legs, as he stood up and looked outon the boiling cauldron. For fifteen minutes, as he said to himself after- wards, he never saw it blow harder. Then there came a rift in the clouds. The Birdie, under her bare pole, had been drifting off to leeward, but it was now time to make sail. “Haul up the jib,” Tipton shouted to Vanton, ‘and stand by your throat halliards."* “May I go downstairs, pleaded Mrs. Tipton. “Not on your life!’ roared her re- constructed husband. ‘‘ You stay on deck, and do as I tell you!” One hour and thirty-five minutes dear?” “Mrs. Tipton convulsively held on to Tipton’s legs.” later a small, thirty-foot yacht,-under double reefs, slipped into the harbor and up to her mooring. Tho owner of the yacht stocd forward and caught the cable as she rounded to. In the cockpit sat a lady in a satnrated shirt waist, and on her face a rap expression betukening an advanced de. gree of mingled admiration and respect, as she gazed at a small, determined- looking man, who, for the past hour and a half, had been running things to suit himself for the first time in eight years, At precisely eight o'clock that same evening, that same man, smoking a large cigar and disseminating as he went along the faint bouquet of whiskey and water, entered his wife's dressing-room. “Sarah,”’ he said, “come here!” Mrs. Tipton came over and gazed lovingly at her lord and master. “Yes, dear,”’ she said, ‘what is it?” “Now, my dear,” said Tipton, “we may as well understand each other. Hitherto, to keep peace in the family, I've done a great many things that no other self-respecting man would do and I'VE GOT THROUGH! Here- after, when you want shopping done in town, you do it yourself. I carry no more bundles! Not only that, but you will hire your own servants. You will also attend to the marketing, and if it exceeds a certain sum a week, I'll take it out of your allowance. As for your buying me any more clothes of any description, why, I won't have it. I'm through, Sarah. Hereafter I run this house myself. Do you under- stand?"’ Mrs. Tipton went over to him and put her arms around his neck. ‘ My dear,”” she said, rapturously, “1 e been hoping for years that you would talk that way to me.” Tom Masson.