Life — August 24, 1922 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page features a single cartoon depicting two men in an elegant study. One older man stands with his back to the viewer near a fireplace; a younger man sits in a chair. A small dog is present. The caption reads: "When I was your age I had no thought of taking a wife." / "But I don't want to take a wife; I want one of my own." **The Joke:** This is a play on the phrase "take a wife"—the older generation understood marriage as acquiring a wife (passive possession), while the younger man jokes he wants an *independent* woman he'd choose for herself, not one given to him. It satirizes changing attitudes toward marriage and women's agency, suggesting generational conflict over outdated marital concepts. The cartoon mocks old-fashioned patriarchal assumptions about marriage as a transaction.