In our last thrilling installment, we considered postcards which made jokes about couples who were mismatched in waist size: a round man and a spindly woman or vice versa. But apparently the postcard cartoonists found disparity in height to be nearly as hilarious. The tall man and the short(er) woman gave rise to jokes easily, including some we might not make today.
Naturally, as we are in the world of cartoon humor, things needed to be exaggerated. It was considered normal (whether the facts bore this out or not) for men to be taller than women, so to make a funny, you had to shrink her a little and stretch his spine a bit.
It might seem to us, misjudging our ancestors as always, that this giant of a man would be the more adventurous, more proactive side of the romantic pairing.
This was not always the case, however. Even our ancestors could observe that sometimes the woman had to take the lead. (As I have mentioned hereintofore, how many more clues does this chap NEED?)
In any case, we have a literary tradition suggesting that the exceptionally tall man is kind of shy. (We also have a tradition that goes quite the other way, of course. We are vast; we contain multitudes.)
However, the couple generally finds a way to make things work. (Like our cartoonists, who are addicted to this particular caption and will cheerfully come up with a new picture every week to fit it: romantic couples, cigars, beards, what have you.)
Love, we are reminded, is blind, and romance and bliss will follow the most unlikely attachments.
Although there can be little hiccups along the way, no matter how tall you are. (I think the wronged girlfriends have realized that if added together, they ARE bigger than he is.)
When it comes to an entirely mismatched couple, most cartoonists are romantic. (AND, as you will notice in the caption, aware of their shared treasure trove of jokes.)
I like to think this is the same couple as seen in the previous card, coming back to the beach for their thirty-seventh anniversary.
On the other hand, this happiness IS something of an exception when, as mentioned last time around, the couple is, in fact, married. For every happy ending like this one, there are a dozen other cards in which married couples of different sizes…but that’s a whole nother blog.
Blogsy Babbles 