Life, 1914-04-09 · page 29 of 40
Life — April 9, 1914 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes marital discord and the frustrations of matrimony. The illustration shows an impatient wife urging her husband to hurry, with the caption suggesting their marriage is stalled or going nowhere—a visual pun on the couple appearing stuck or immobile. The accompanying text sections mock both high-society marriages and idealized romantic conventions. "Just a Word, Please" ridicules society weddings where couples marry for wealth rather than love, reducing matrimonial motivations to cynical questions about money and status. "Imaginary Conversations" parodies overly romantic or impractical engagement dialogues popular in contemporary drama, presenting absurdly unrealistic lovers who claim indifference to ceremony, salary, and honeymoons. Together, the page satirizes early 20th-century marriage—whether the mundane reality of unhappy spouses or the theatrical fantasy of perfectly compatible romantics—as equally ridiculous. The humor targets both actual marital strain and sentimental fiction about love.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE HELPMATE “CAN'T YOU HURRY A LITTLE, JOHN? WE DON'T SEEM TO RE GETTING ANYWHERE!" 661 Just a Word, Please NE clubman tells a siting clubman of a society sensation. Done after the style of our lat- est drama dialogue: arried?” “Love?” “ Possibly.” “Money?” “ Probably.” “ Whose?” “ Hers. “Much?” “ Millions.” “How?” “Widow.” “Grass?” “ Young.” “Titled?” Imaginary Conversations “T LOVE you!” “Isn't that splendid? I love you.” “When shall we get married?” “Oh, any time. I don’t need a trousscau, and J never like —ceremonions weddings.” “My salary is only ten thousand a year.” “That doesn't matter. I can do my own house- work.” “And where shall we go on a honeymoon?” “Don't let's go any- where. We'll sit at home and read aloud.” “But your wedding- gown—we had forgotten that.” “ What's the matter with this one T have on?” comicbooks.com