Why They Married

Why do people marry? This playful collection offers a parade of comic answers, delivered through short rhymes and caricatured portraits of husbands, wives, brides, and bridegrooms. Some wed for money, companionship, convenience, vanity, stubbornness, or fear of growing old alone; others seem to have been carried into matrimony by accident, misjudgment, or sheer force of personality.

Each vignette captures a different kind of couple, from the domineering wife and her “master” of a husband to the bride who replaces an absent groom rather than return the presents. The jokes are brisk, mischievous, and rooted in the social customs and romantic expectations of the early twentieth century.

Listeners can dip in for a quick laugh or enjoy the volume as a gallery of exaggerated marital types. The accompanying illustrations add another layer of wit, turning every odd explanation into a compact comic scene about love, money, appearances, and the many questionable reasons people say “I do.