The Wasp — 1893 — page 133: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical comic strip presents a bride with an "artificial better half" (a dummy/doll) experiencing various social situations. The caption "The harrowing experiences of a bridegroom with an artificial better half" ironically titles it as examining marriage failure. The joke satirizes marital dysfunction by depicting the bride as literally a lifeless prop. Each panel shows awkward social encounters—formal dress, dining, dancing, even domestic scenes—where the artificial wife creates comic disasters. The satire critiques either: unrealistic expectations men had of wives as passive ornaments, or perhaps the emotional "deadness" some felt characterized actual marriages. The surrounding advertisements for bicycles, cigars, and other consumer goods suggest this targets middle-class readers contemplating marriage during this era.