The Wasp — 1896 — page 169: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon depicts two well-dressed men in formal suits sitting across a table, apparently in serious conversation. The caption indicates a father and son discussing a wedding postponement. The son claims he told his fiancée the wedding would happen "for time and eternity," but when she objected, he suggested postponing it for "a couple of thousand years yet." The joke satirizes either cold feet or a failed engagement—the son is using absurd, indefinite postponement as a face-saving way to break off the wedding. The cartoon mocks masculine cowardice or indecision regarding marriage commitment. The formal setting and gentlemen's attire emphasize the social pretense masking relationship failure. The page is primarily filled with period advertisements for champagne, hotels, bicycles, and ammunition.