Life, 1912-08-08 · page 31 of 40
Life — August 8, 1912 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This piece satirizes male hypocrisy regarding spending and morality. The text argues that men who lecture women about extravagance are themselves guilty of far greater excess through yacht ownership. The satire's logic: moralists condemn women for wanting clothes and luxuries as sources of "crime" and ruin, yet yachting—an enormously expensive hobby requiring constant maintenance costs—goes uncriticized. A man maintaining a yacht spends vastly more than any woman's wardrobe, yet society permits this without moral judgment. The author points out the double standard: a man proud of displaying his wife as a "society ornament" must constantly fund her upkeep, much like a yacht owner. Yet one is condemned as wasteful while the other is accepted as normal masculine privilege. **For modern readers**: This critiques how Victorian society blamed women for financial problems while excusing men's comparable or greater extravagances as acceptable status symbols.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| “Mum” takes all odor out of perspi- ration, without injuring skin or clothes. Has no odor of its own. 5c matttan-demnmenyatre, tt yous ‘Ghe Original EFFECTIVE NON-SKID TIRE dealer hasn't“ Mum’ send us his name and 25 ceats and we'll send you a Jar postpaid “MUM” MFG. CO., 1106 Chestnut St., Phila. The Happy Yachtsman There is a large class of men who are convineed tMat the extravagance of women is the root of all evil. Severe moralists, who find it difficult to clothe their wives and to provide themselves at the same time with costly cigars, insist, in season and out of season, that the woman who is not contented with calico will be sure to lead her husband into crime. Very probably many women are foolishly extravagant and deserve to have reproving stoncs cast at them by fault- lessly economical men; but the wildest extravagance of the most reckless woman is so vastly inferior to that of the ordi- nary yacht that there is manifest unfair- ness in lecturing the former and per- mitting the latter to go scot free. Unsophisticated persons living in in- land towns cannot understand why the cost of maintaining a yacht need neces- sarily be so enormous as it notoriously is. After the first cost of providing one’s self with a yacht is paid, they can- not perceive the necessity for spending vast annual sums upon her. But it is with yachts as it is with women. A man who provides himself with a pretty wife, equipped with a sufficient quantity of clothes, might keep her very cheaply if Hy } Ne SpAGEaD TeCAD Pet surr iea? 3 ital MakE your August tours on skid-proof tires. Take no chances on the occasional mud-holes you are bound to encounter in the hollows; on slippery grass as you pass your brother motorist. Put Republic Staggard Tread Tires on your rims. The long, tough studs (six rows of them, set longitudinally) hold the road like a spiked wheel, giving perfect traction, preventing slewing and skidding. And don’t forget to put in a couple of spare Republic Black-line Red Inner Tubes. Once you have used them and learned their easy riding qualities, their double service, you will have no other inner tube. Made only of the finest up-river Para rubber, in a Compound that yields the greatest resiliency and wear. THE REPUBLIC RUBBER COMPANY, YOUNGSTOWN, OH10 BRANCHES AND AGENCIES IN THE PRINCIPAL CITIES he did not permit her to go into society. Usually, however, he is proud of her, and wants to exhibit her, and conse- quently, after he had made her an orna ment of society, he has to defray the constant expense of maintaining her po- sition. It is not impossible for a yachts- man to buy a yacht, and to use her in a modest and quict way without ruining shows, s for istrs. however, himself. Experience A Happy Marriage Depends largely on a know!- edge of the whole truth about self and sex and their relation to life and health. This knowledge does not come intelligently of itself, nor correctly from ordinary, every-day sources, SEXOLOGY bt (Iltnstrated) ry William HH. Walling, A.M., M.D.,imparts in a clear, wholesome way in one volume i . nowledge a Young Man Shull Have, nowledes Husband should Have, Hhowleige a Father shouid Have. i nawledge tt Pathe Iimpart to THs Son, Medical Kuowledge « Husbuud should Haves Knowledse a ¥ Kuowledge a ¥ nowledge 0 Mo iedge a Mo " Ki er Should Tmpart to Her Dai Medical Knowledge a Wife Should I Allin one volume. Ilustrated, $2, postpaid. re © Write for “Other Peo} ok and Table of Contents. Puritan Pub. Co., 776 Perry Bidg., Phila., that he is never satisfied until he has joined a yacht club, and thus introduce his yacht to the society of other fash- ionable yachts. Now, the yacht is far more fond of extravagant display than is the average woman, and when the once modest schooner or bashful sloop has tasted the pleasures of a regatta, she proceeds to lavish her owner's for- tune with frightful recklessness. The world has little conception of the Private misery of the owner of a fast and beautiful yacht. During the racing season she splits her sails as though they is7t were lace flounces, and sheds topmasts and booms as though they were hairpins. The yachtsman, of course, pretends that he has perfect confidence in her, but he is daily harassed by doubts as to the ab- solute propriety of her conduct in beat- ing to windward, and never lays his head vpon his pillow without asking himself the fearful question whether she has too much of too little ballast. There is no American yacht whose constitution can bear the wild excesses of the regatta season without becoming more or less impaired. When the season is over and comicbooks.com