Life, 1923-03-29 · page 6 of 40
Life — March 29, 1923 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page features a satirical diary entry dated March 24th, describing upper-middle-class domestic life. The main cartoon depicts two women on a sofa, with the caption: "Think you'll ever marry, Eleanor?" "No, probably not. Men don't like women with brains." **The satire targets**: Gender attitudes of the era—specifically the social expectation that intelligent women face marriage difficulties because men prefer less educated, more traditionally domestic wives. The joke ironically presents this as accepted wisdom, mocking both the limiting attitudes toward women's intellect and the assumption that intellectual women must sacrifice romantic prospects. The diary entries humorously chronicle mundane social events (parties, dancing) and domestic concerns, satirizing the triviality often expected of women's lives and interests.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE CMs Lops Diary March The year is now at the 24th spring, which many per- sons are glad of, and I too, in a way, albeit this season hath since my childhood been fraught with an underlying sadness which I can- not understand and which gives me a frustrate feeling unknown at other times of the year.. The softer air is grateful; it is pleasant to leave off wearing spats and to dispense with annealing ointments for the skin. But I hold with Mistress Edna Mil- lay that April is not enough. Though all nature awakens and fresh paint scents the breeze, I find no renascence in myself, God help me, being afflicted, on the contrary, with a lassitude which I am = at some pains to over- come. It delights me, however, to purchase new ap- parel, and __ this morning I did lay out a considerable sum thereon, be- ing solvent at the moment and mind- ful of my birthday cheque, which I pray I may not have disbursed ut- terly before it is due... .To a great party in the evening, wearing my fine new red slippers, but they pained me until I was loath to dance, so four of us stole to a distant room for a bout at bridge. But Lord! some zanies were playing Spanish and Chinese musick on a gramophone beyond the doors, the ungodliest strains that ever I heard in my life, until we were at our wits’ ends to keep up the game. Sam, when they “Think you'll ever marry, Eleanor?” left for a moment, did dash forth to the hallway and place the records they had played on the stairs, pray- ing that some errant guest would tread on them. But none did. And so, after a few noisy rubbers, home and to bed. March Sam in a twitter because 25th he fancied the new gin (Lord’s Day) to have a strange per- fume, and wondering what Jack Mit- chell would think of it, whereupon I hoped aloud that Jack would think so ill of it as to drink none soever, he having been superspirited the last time he was at our house. . . .All manner of rag, tag and bobtail come for supper, after which they fell to dancing. Sam, having overheard a mild complaint about the floor, did, without my knowledge, sprinkle it with bicarbonate of soda, lamely serting, when the casualties began, that he could find nothing else. And Jack Mitchell, poor wretch, who would have been unsteady on a dirt floor, did knock over and break the lamp given us for Christmas by our cozen Amy, for which I thank God. ‘ L “No, probably not. Men don’t like women with brains.” comicbooks.com