Life — September 26, 1930 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page contains two distinct pieces: **"Envious" (top right):** A poem by W.E. Forstein satirizing marriage customs in various non-Western cultures—Zululand, the Hebrideads, Turkish Kurdistan, and Tirah. The joke compares the economic "cost" of acquiring wives (seven cows, five pigs, one rifle) across these societies, then mocks Western readers for considering themselves fortunate that wives are "absolutely free"—implying wives are actually a financial burden or emotional liability through other means. **"Letters of a Picnic Ant" (lower left):** A humorous column from "Ant Bessie" requesting ant poison for a summer cottage, complaining about summer boarders being unpleasant, and describing mundane domestic incidents (a grasshopper visitor, a grandson's nosebleed). The accompanying cartoon shows two ants discussing a lost horn. The satire gently mocks suburban summer life and domestic triviality through the ant perspective.