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.