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

What you’re looking at

# "A TIP FOR MIDDLE-AGED GROOMS" 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.