Life, 1923-08-09 · page 23 of 36
Life — August 9, 1923 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a domestic humor column with accompanying cartoons satirizing married life and gender roles in early-to-mid 20th century America. **Top cartoon:** Shows children rushing past ivy-covered fence with caption about hurrying to Sunday school—a gentle joke about childhood reluctance toward religious obligation. **Main column:** Written by L. Blanche Simpson, it humorously portrays a wife's perspective on her husband's complaints. He gripes about dress codes (men can't wear comfortable gingham suits due to social convention), summer heat, income taxes preventing him from taking time off, and her proposed summer picnics with their impracticalities (fitted lunch baskets, bugs, litter on roadsides). **Bottom cartoon:** A caricatured sunburned face labeled "Sunburned on his weak end"—presumably the husband from the column, depicting the physical consequence of his leisure time spent outdoors. The satire gently mocks both spouses: the husband's complaints and social constraints, and the wife's oblivious, cheerful domesticity. It reflects period anxieties about work, income, and marital dynamics.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“WE'D BETTER HURRY UP, BILLY, OR WE'LL BE LATE FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL.” My Husband Says HAT he thinks it remarkable that I could look out on blinding snowstorms last winter and plan a summer wardrobe. But I just loved to think of the cool things I’d wear on bitterly hot days this summer. Of course, one wouldn’t tell about the lines of one’s best things, but everybody knows one simply can’t have too many ging- hams and things that will tub. My husband says he’d like to wear a gingham suit if he could get away with it. But he says the law discrimin- ates against men in the matter of dress. He says there was a time in the history of this country when men wore “heavies” and in those days they had something to leave off in hot weather. But he says that work is the only thing he could leave off that would have a cooling effect, and on account of the income tax and all the things that I really need he can’t see his way clear to leaving that off for some time. I'm awfully sorry for him, and I think it’s simply in- human for ladies to go away for the entire season and leave their poor husbands to struggle alone. So I’ve decided to stay at home all summer. He says he'd much prefer to have me go to some nice cool place, and he thinks the change would be so restful. But I was cool all last winter and I didn’t care much for it, and I think it would be perfectly heavenly to pack dainty sand- wiches and things in a fitted lunch basket and motor off to some woodsy place to picnic with him. But he says he hates fitted lunch baskets because they are so full of fit- tings there is no room for anything to eat. And he hates bugs. But I don’t mind them at all. I think some bugs are stunning and so interesting in their habits, He says we'd have to motor a thousand miles to find a place unsullied by paper plates, napkins and other débris left by those who had eaten before. I think it’s awfully mean for people to leave such ugly things to mar the beauty of the roadside. But we always use the fluted paper plates and napkins with borders in priceless colors, and I always arrange them as artistically as I can when we leave them. L. Blanche Simpson. SUNBURNED ON HIS WEAK END comicbooks.com