Life, 1909-04-08 · page 19 of 32
Life — April 8, 1909 — page 19: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page addresses women's legal identity upon remarriage, specifically whether widows should retain their first husband's name or adopt their second husband's surname. **The Main Article** argues that when a widow remarries late in life, she should be buried under the name of her *first* husband—the man with whom she spent her most significant years, bore children, and built her identity. The article cites a recent case where a woman married 30+ years to her first husband (who fathered all her children and left her his fortune) was buried under her second husband's name after only 6 years of marriage. The author finds this unjust, as it erases her primary identity and life achievement. **The Top Cartoon** shows fashion evolution across four centuries (1609-1909), with the caption "Who says that fashions change?" The joke is ironic: despite radically different clothing styles, male attitudes toward women remain unchanged—men still claim women are "the only woman I have ever loved." **The Bottom Cartoons** appear to be unrelated humorous sketches about telephone miscommunication and mistaken identity, likely filler content typical of satirical magazines.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1609 1709 1809 491 1909 The A Point in Which Our Cus- toms Need Amendment T usages of civilized life as we live it here and now, ought to in- clude a provision under which widows who marry again should be buried— when it comes time, and unless they ex- press a preference to the contrary, under the name of the husband to whom they were most married. Second marriages are often conven- ient and suitable even for persons well on in years, They may, and often do, make happy the closing years of lives that would otherwise be lonely. What is not suitable, and does not accord with ordinary sense of fitness, is that a woman who has been identified in the active and important years of her life as the wife of one worthy man, and by his name, should lose that important identity when she marries again for a late companionship. In a recent case the lady was mar- ried upward of thirty years to her first husband and six years to the second Both were very well-known men, but the first husband was the father of all her children, and the inheritor of a great fortune, a large share of which he left to her. She honored his memory in the uses she made of his money, and indeed in all ways. Yet she was buried and YOU AkE THE Girls; om, Tus 18 So SUDDEN! her death was advertised in the papers as though her first marriage was an in- cident and her second an event. That was not so. Her first marriage was the event, and the second the incident. Yet there was no other way than to bury her under her last husband's name. NOT “15 MR, FROG IN? ’? ONLY WOMAN 1 HAVE EVER LOVED, Should women lose, when they marry, the names they were born to? Some- times we think they shouldn't. We be- lieve they don’t in Russia. But cer- tainly they never should lose, involun- tarily, a name that they have acquired by marriage POLLYwoc ARGENTUM oN’ “metto! you’LL MAVE TO GeT YOUR VOICE NEARER THE 'PHONE OR 1 CAN'T HEAR YOU comicbooks.com