You might argue that one week's budget of comic papers is no real
criterion--that the recurrence of these themes may be fortuitous. My
answer to that objection is that this list coincides exactly with a
list which (before studying these papers) I had made of the themes
commonest, during the past few years, in the music-halls. This twin
list, which results from separate study of the two chief forms of
public entertainment, may be taken as a sure guide to the goal of our
inquiry.
Let us try to find some unifying principle, or principles, among the
variegated items. Take the first item--Mothers-in-law. Why should the
public roar, as roar it does, at the mere mention of that
relationship? There is nothing intrinsically absurd in the notion of a
woman with a married daughter. It is probable that she will sympathise
with her daughter in any quarrel that may arise between husband and
wife. It is probable, also, that she will, as a mother, demand for her
daughter more unselfish devotion than the daughter herself expects.
But this does not make her ridiculous. The public laughs not at her,
surely. It always respects a tyrant. It laughs at the implied concept
of the oppressed son-in-law, who has to wage unequal warfare against
two women. It is amused by the notion of his embarrassment.
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