Marriage-à-la-New Zealand
'Sure we like him...', 2001
Garrick Tremain, 'Sure we like him...', 2001, Otago Daily Times, New Zealand Cartoon Archive, Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference: H-645-018
'Sure we like him...', 2001
Garrick Tremain's cartoons are published in the Otago Daily Times.
'Sure we like him' offers a contemporary twist on the 19th-century cartoons featured in this exhibition that present marriage as a financial transaction, often sweetened by a dowry.
Tremain's cartoon specifically refers to the Property Relationships Amendment Act that was proposed in 2001. This new law meant that after three years of living together a couple's possessions would be divided equally should the relationship break up.
Here, even the supposedly happily married parents have lost the romanticism of their daughter, and thanks to this new legislation now look at marriage as a transaction.
View more of Tremain's cartoons in the New Zealand Cartoon Archive.
Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga O Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image
