Life, 1911-07-20 · page 18 of 40
Life — July 20, 1911 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon mocks a fictional "marriage cure" service for troubled husbands. The illustration depicts a boat labeled "Great Matrimonial" ferrying couples, satirizing the absurdity of commercializing marital advice. The accompanying text presents a tongue-in-cheek "business proposition" offering unhappy husbands a list of "cured" homes to visit and learn from. The satire deepens with a testimonial letter describing advice like "agreeing with his wife too constantly" and knowing "when it is absolutely indispensable to deceive your wife." The piece ridicules early 20th-century American marriage dynamics and gender relations—particularly the notion that wives needed "managing" and that deception was acceptable. It also lampoons the commercialization of personal problems and the era's self-help culture. The final denial about "trouble at home" and the claim that men prioritize business over wives underscores the satire: Life is mocking both the service's absurdity and contemporary attitudes about husbands' disengagement from family life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AARP, AAA RA OS OEEE att fees Regntalhla SOME AMERICAN HUSBANDS, piled a list of cures on our books, and after having been in correspondence with these cures we are prepared to make the following proposition to all new customers. After you have paid your entrance fee, we will send you a selected list of homes in your neighborhood that have been You can visit these happy homes and learn directly from those we have bene- made happy through our good offices. fited just what has been done for them. Thus while you are struggling along with our help you will be provided with an object lesson in matrimony You will be able to talk personally with the husbands who have been cured, to receive the benefit of their advice and to see just how a home should work under our modern system Many of our custe teered to entertain any suffering husband on our books and do all they can for him free, but we do not ask this, On the contrary, we are willing to refund a percentage of the cost of the cure to any husband who will thus entertain a new customer. This is a system of insurance that actually works and we make the offer not so much out of generosity as because it is good business. rs who have been cured have volun- It helps us to make a cure by placing before cur client the actual result as it has been achieved in another case. We may say that before making this announcement we tried it out and know that it will work. The following let- ter is only one among many received : Dear Sirs: As one of your grateful customers I write to tell you that a xentleman who has placed himself in your care has just called uy me, and I was able to be of great service to him. In his anxiety to ‘do the right thing I discovered that he had, for example, been agreeing with his wife too constantly. I took him into my home and showed him the happy medium. 1 was also able to point out to him he times when it 13 absolutely indispensable to deceive your wife— when, in fact, she expects it—and when it is fatal, He went away with ‘an entirely new conception of married life, and I have just heard from him that he is makinz great progress. Yours sincerely, Owing to the necessary expense of this new department, we are compelled to make a slight advance in our rates to all new customers, to take effect on the first of the month, Full particulars upon application. In the meantime we desire to deny the frequent rumors, started by well-known parties, that we are having any trouble at home. It has been stated that every American thinks more of his business than he does of his wife. It is for this comicbookMeom