Life — March 21, 1901 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes the practice of hiring unmarried men—policemen and messengers—to serve as ushers at weddings, apparently considered inappropriate or risky. The image shows a formal church wedding scene with multiple military or official figures in dress uniforms standing around a seated couple (the bride and groom). The caption suggests the joke concerns using "undertakers' men, policemen and messengers" as wedding ushers, implying these working-class or morally questionable individuals might cause problems at an upscale wedding. The satire targets middle-aged grooms specifically, perhaps suggesting they're naive or foolish to trust their wedding to such attendants. The cartoon reflects early 20th-century class anxieties about propriety and social hierarchy in formal social events.