Life, 1909-05-13 · page 10 of 32
Life — May 13, 1909 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes divorce and women's independence in early 20th-century America. The main article "When to Be Divorced" advises against divorcing merely because a wife falls for another man—doing so would only cause trouble for everyone involved, including the new man. The cartoons mock both female infidelity and male anxieties about women's changing roles. One illustration shows a woman reading while her husband departs, with her claiming she has "nothing to wear"—satirizing women's supposed materialism. Another depicts men in what appears to be a club setting, with accompanying verse about mystic dreams and fate. The overall tone suggests anxious humor about shifting gender dynamics and marriage instability among the educated classes during the era of emerging feminism and women's suffrage movements.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“pon’T YOU DARE TO LAUGH AT Me!" “AIN'T! WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO DROP.” When to Be Divorced - HEN a new movement arises, it always takes a certain time to reduce it to a set of principles. With a view to facilitate the divorce move- ment, we beg leave to submit the fol- lowing rules: Never attempt to secure from your wife just because she throws a flower pot at your head. She has a constitutional right to be hysterical and nervous. You are that way yourself, at times, but- vent it by going out to your club, or stealing off to some other re- gion where nervousness can be dis- pelled. Besides, the probability is that she will never hit you. You are never in real danger. a divorce Ne A BRIN Ce dd Do not secure a divorce from her simply because she happens to fall in love with another man. If you do, she Moreover, something is or seems ‘That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams— felt, like something here; done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare. Tennyson. : NOT GOING OUT To voTE! WHY NOT? will probably marry the other man, and cause him as much trouble as she is causing you. Therefore, it is your plain duty to hang on to her—not only your duty to yourself, but to the other man. A Sacred Rite M EN by their follies make them- selves sick, and then, for the dis- covery of means whereby they may’ be cured without the trouble of correcting those follies (grown precious by long and unstinted indulgence), they erect Institutes of Research, where all sorts of agonies are inflicted on dumb beasts whose good habits have kept them well. It is a practical form of vicarious atonement. It delivers the goods, with- out any theological twaddle. The Greeks offered up animals sac- rifice to Aesculapius, but these they put to death at once. The prolonged tor- ture is a modern refinement which no doubt savors sweetly to the gods. “T_ IKE lettuce, Pat?’ “No, Oi don't. An’ Oi'm glad O3 don’t. For if Oi liked ut, Oi'd ate ut, an’ I hate the damn stuff.” comicbooks.com