A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Nineteen

This week's A Joke A Day a week was no better nor worse than usual, but it did do something that surprised me: it baffled me.

Seriously. Under the category of "one-liners," Tuesday's A Joke A Day said simply this:

Wife is the knife which cuts the life but there is no life without a wife.

This isn't a matter of not understanding because it's about a subject I could care less about (see "golf jokes"). This is apparently a "one-liner" that is trying both to be clever ("wife" rhymes with "life" & "knife") & misogynistic (is the life the knife-wife is cutting your own?) but also perhaps profound (everyone comes from a mother, I think it's trying to say).

But what the fuck does it mean? Do wives ruin husbands' lives more than husbands ruin the lives of their wives? How many battered men shelters are there out there? & how long has it been since it was required for a woman to be married to have a child?

Not to mention that "wife" not only implies heterosexual marriage. The crafty fellow who tossed off this bon mot doesn't seem to be aware of the gains made in both gay rights & women's rights in the last forty years.

I know, I'm thinking about this too much. I'm not just thinking, you know, that it's impossible to imagine someone finding this funny - I'm thinking it's impossible to imagine someone even understanding it.