Life, 1912-03-21 · page 37 of 52
Life — March 21, 1912 — page 37: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page mixes satirical commentary on marriage with period advertising. **The "Matrimony" section** presents contradictory quotations about marriage from famous figures—Balzac, Johnson, Emerson, Franklin, and others—creating humor through their conflicting perspectives on conjugal life. The satire is gentle: marriage is simultaneously sweetness and drudgery, a mystery men cannot fully comprehend, and a trap people desperately want to escape or enter. **The advertisements** are period-appropriate: tobacco mixture, a sanitarium for "nervous and mild mental diseases," and notably, a **Colt revolver** marketed as safe for "Home Protection" with a "Positive Lock" preventing accidental discharge—a sales pitch emphasizing the gun won't fire without deliberate trigger-pulling, appealing to anxious householders. The juxtaposition is unintentional rather than satirical—this is simply how Life's pages were organized, mixing editorial content with paying ads. The revolver ad's emphasis on safety reflects early-20th-century concerns about household firearms and accident prevention.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Matrimony No navigator has yet traced lines of itude and longitude on the conjugal sea—Honoré de Balzac. Wen a husband is embraced with- out affection, there must be some rea- son for it—Hitopadesa, However old a conjugal union, it still garners some sweetness. Winter has some cloudless days, and under the snow a few flowers still bloom. —Madame de Staél. By taking a second wife a man pays the highest compliment to the first. by showing that she made him so happy as a married man that he wishes to be so a second time.—Samuel Johnson. Howrver dull a woman may be, she will understand all there is in conjugal love; however intelligent a man may be, he will never know but half of it. —Madame Fee. Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world,’that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? —Ralph Waldo Emerson. I kxow not which live more unnatural lives, Obeying husbands or commanding wives. —Benjamin Franklin. Sue that is born handsome is born married.—Proverb, SuRBRUG’S ARCADIA MIXTURE Its aromatic delicacy will surprise you. It is the most perfect blend of tobacco you |) er put in your pipe—the highest class—it sands all by itself, the KING of mixture: A tobacco that your women folks will like tohave you smoke at home—You may never tave known the luxury of a pipe smoke before. Send 10 Cents 2.iv2ih6 THE SURBRUG CO., 204 Broadway, New York ja ee di od Dru; Farate cottages for Alcoh: ‘ mfor. tires DR. GIVENS, S Absolutely prevents acciden- tal discharge because a bar of solid steel stands between the face of hammer and frame so that the firing pin cannot touch the cartridge until the trigger is purposely pulled to fire a shot. It Works Automatically —Re This makes a COLT the ideally safe, confidence-inspiring revolver for Home Pro CANNOT BE PREMATURELY DISCHARGED by being dropped, by the hammer slipping when partly cocked, or by being struck a blow. Ask your dealer to show you a Colt with the Positive Lock Catalog 6 describing Siteatms Tits spectre of the female politician, who abandons her family to neglect for the sake of passing bills in Parliament, is just as complete an illusion of the masculine brain as the other spectre whom Sydney Smith laid by a joke— the woman who would forsake her in- fant for a quadratic equation. —Frances Power Cobbe. Ir you want a neat wife, choose her on a Saturday.—Benjamin Franklin, COLT’S PATENT FIRE ARMS MFG. CO. OLVERS LDIS}RIGHT/ARM § meal quires No Thought! tection. all COLT models mailed free on request. HARTFORD, CONN. Tuesrstoctrs said that his son, who knew how to wheedle his mother, was the most powerful man in all Greece. “ For,” says he, “the Athenians rule the Hellenes, I rule the Athenians, your mother rules me, and you rule your mother! "—Plutarch. Tue Italians have this proverb: In buying houses and taking a wife, shut your eyes and commend yourself to God. —Charles Pincau Duclos, comicbooks.com