“Just About Married” (November 12, 1984)
by Mischa Richter (1910-2001)
8 x 11 in., ink and wash on watercolor paper
Coppola Collection

Mischa Richter (1910-2001) was a well-known New Yorker, King Features, and PM newspaper cartoonist who worked for the Communist Party’s literary journal “New Masses” in the late 1930 and early 1940s, becoming its art editor in the 1940s.

In this piece is from The New Yorker (11/12/1984) and it is more interesting than it appears at first glance.

The telltale clue is the license plate – 12 4 X

Here is the relevant headline from December 4, 1984:

Nation’s First Domestic Partnership Law Passed

“It took five years of lobbying by a stalwart city employee before the city of Berkeley [CA] enacted the nation’s first domestic partnership ordinance in 1984. At the outset only city employees could register, and the program offered only dental insurance coverage and leave benefits to city employees, but within a year Berkeley began including medical insurance benefits as well.”

Frederick Hertz, JD “Making It Legal: A Guide to Same-Sex Marriage, Domestic Partnerships & Civil Unions,” 2011

Tom Brougham, a Berkeley city employee working on the Task Force associated with this action, coined the term “domestic partner” and created the concept.

I wonder how many people caught this meaning in 1984 (see below for original appearance, which was not embedded in an article related to it), or simply figured this was a riff on the usual traditional of hanging signs of “just married” from cars, and not that funny? The ambiguity of the two passengers is no accident.

The New Yorker (11/12/1984) p 109