Malheureux! tu veux donc tuer le père de tes enfants? 1841

Honoré Daumier made this lithograph sometime in the mid-19th century. Entitled, “Malheureux! tu veux donc tuer le père de tes enfants?,” it depicts a domestic dispute between a wife and her saber-wielding husband. The image derives its meaning from its witty commentary on contemporary social norms around gender and marriage in France. Daumier's caricature exaggerates the features of both figures, mocking the husband's aggression and the wife's histrionics. The setting, a middle-class dining room, suggests that such scenes were commonplace behind closed doors. More broadly, the image may reflect anxieties about the changing roles of men and women in a rapidly modernizing society. The availability of divorce and the rise of feminist ideas were hot topics during the period that Daumier was producing lithographs like this one. Understanding Daumier's art requires an appreciation for the socio-political climate of 19th-century France, which we can grasp through careful attention to archival sources and secondary literature. The interpretation of art is always contingent on understanding the social and institutional contexts in which it was made.