When Marriage Is a Failure—Cherchez la Femme Have You a Little Failure In Your Home?

A CATALOGUE OF WIVES

There are only six kinds of wives. They are all shown on these two pages, but only one of them can be—on a crossed heart—warmly recommended. Fortunately marriage—which is at best but a primitive substitute for friendship—is becoming less and less fashionable, so that every year fewer of our young society leaders are sacrificed on the wedding pyre. This is especially true among clever people. And now, reader, here is our first exhibit in wives, a very terrible kind, to be sure. She is known as the DEVOTED wife. She loves—and watches out for—her husband, especially in the early morning hours. Note the restraint exercised by our artist in refusing to introduce a cuckoo clock, a device usually inevitable in pictures of this kind.

THE LAPLAND MODEL

Here we see a living embodiment of Model No. 2—the BIJOU DOLL. She is often a blonde, but always a deceiver. Despite persistent complaints—by husbands—against wives of this model, the demand for them continues to be brisk. She always has a serious grievance against Fate! Why is it that her husband is so groundlessly jealous? Is it her fault if his men friends pester her and bother the life out of her? Was it her plan to share a chair with Mr. Reginald Stuart? And how absurd her husband is to carry on in that ridiculous way, just because, being tired, she had to sit somewhere, and, as there was nothing else to sit on, the thought suddenly flashed on her: Why not sit on Mr. Stuart?

THE SECRET SOLVED

And here we see the only perfect wife, the model known as the “LET YOU ALONE.” She is positively the final word—the dernier cri—in wives. Have you ever tried one? No! Ah, then you can’t imagine what married happiness really is. She is guaranteed never to ask any of the four, fatal questions, namely: Why? Where? Who? and When? Hers is an incomparable model that robs marriage of many of its horrors. Give her a cigarette, a glass of chartreuse, on improving little French novel, a pet dog or two and she won’t ask for another thing during an entire afternoon—until the gentlemen callers begin to arrive. More and more sociologists are realizing that married life can be made one grand, sweet song, if the two combatants will only let each other alone.

THE SENSITIVE WIFE

This is the SENSITIVE wife. A familiar and, alas, incurable type. She always makes the mistake of marrying a Fiend Incarnate while still an Innocent and Trusting child. She then spends the remainder of her life in “telling all,” to a strictly limited circle of female friends. Yes, she has children, twin boys—for the Brute has left nothing undone to spoil her life. (N.B. The little boys are shown, in décolleté at the lower left-hand corner). She is fond of “giving away” the fiend to her circle of devoted harpies, furies, and bloodhounds. The Brute does not understand her—and never has, since she was a little, sensitive, misunderstood girl. Her mother should have warned her! Told her what Life really was: explained the grim horror and hateful meaning of it all.

THE “DRESSY” WIFE

An inordinate reader of Vogue; spends her mornings at Lucile’s; Paris is her Heaven; would sell her child for a Callot lace teagown; has to be torn, nightly, from shop windows; wears openwork stockings for breakfast. Our artist shows her in one of her frequent bruised moments. Her husband simply can’t understand how Poiret’s bill can be so much for a single week. But then he never understands anything. He is just a business man. No heart! No soul! No inspired moments! She is married to a “ledger,” a man who is nothing but a glorified adding machine. Her “jailer” has, with the characteristic brutality of a Hun, just refused to sign a blank check which she has made payable to Lanvin. He is trying to squirm out of it by saying that he is overdrawn at the bank—which statement she has just branded as a wilful, malicious and palpable LIE. She knows what he is up to. He wants to HURT her!

THE HUMAN BANK ACCOUNT

And here is the last portrait in our gallery—the rich or MONEYED wife. We would like entirely to discontinue the manufacture of this model and substitute for it, on all future occasions, the old-fashioned, penniless, demure, rosy-cheeked, Oh Alfred, all-for-love, type of wife, but, alas, business is business, and rents, and club dues, and golf balls, and servants wages, are all going up, so why not recognize the fact that a rich wife is a good thing to begin on; something to hang on to until you get up a little free action in the direction of True Love? The only trouble with marrying a rich wife is that, when you sign up for life, you are handed a leather leash along with the wedding certificate. Put a metal collar on your neck and a little red velvet blanket around your middle and you might just as well be Yami, or Sing Hi, or Chihuahua, the only three things in the world that your female meal-ticket really seems to love. Observe the prisoner’s heart-breaking, backward glance! The cry of anguish: the caged spirit, sending out an S.O.S. to two lovely nymphs.