As you no doubt recall, we spent our last thrilling episode discussing how postcard cartoonists addressed the age-old question of how husbands and wives handled their mutual finances. Here is another expression of a perennial joke, as mentioned in that essay. (And, again, if you decide to hunt through the world for other examples so as to get your Ph.D. with a dissertation comparing the different expenses listed in these budgets, kindly mention this column. And mention this column kindly.)
But though we mentioned a few side issues which turned into their own comic traditions, like the price of hats, there were other branches of this rabbit hole we did not explore.
But there is one cliché which attracted a number of postcard cartoonists, even as to this day it can be found in the adventures of, say, Dagwood, or Leroy Lockhorn. And that is the poor carrying home all the things his wife has bought.
The situation is filled with possibilities: one could do a Bingo game of different applications of the gag, from the lady who kindly removes one box from the stack her husband is carrying so he can see where he’s walking to the lady who gets home only to find she is accompanied by a stranger whose wife accidentally swapped with her because the piles of purchases were so high neither could tell which man was behind them. When it comes to the comic strip of the twenty-first century, these variations are a Christmas tradition in spite of those who do their shopping on the Interwebs. But in the golden age of postcards, one theme reigned supreme.
It ain’t subtle. We are given to understand that any man might let his wife get away with buying a lot. But only a truly submissive, downtrodden male would then allow himself to be used as a beast of burden to haul it all home.
Real men, we are given to understand, don’t go shopping with their wives. They are working in an office, bawling out underlings about the budget, and come home to faint dead away when presented with the bills. (Had they gotten a little mor exercise carrying hat boxes and such, they might have averted that fate, but the cartoonists never mention THAT.)
Far and few were the cartoonists who expressed doubts about whether a husband could be trusted to do any shopping without escort.
And it took a really big man, like cartoonist Tom Browne, to show us the results when a bachelor went to the store. The joke is on the poor dub shown here, who thinks having a wife would save him from all this. Obviously, he hasn’t been shopping in the postcard rack.
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