Success Quote by Harold Coffin

A punchline dressed up as a proverb, Coffin's line flatters men while smuggling in a sharp jab at the domestic economy that props them up. It borrows the reassuring cadence of "behind every successful man..". then yanks the rug with "a woman who has nothing to wear" - the classic comic complaint of abundance masquerading as scarcity. The mechanics are pure bait-and-switch: we expect devotion or sacrifice; we get consumer anxiety.

The intent is double. On the surface, it's a tidy sexist joke: women as irrational shoppers, men as the serious engines of achievement. But the subtext cuts wider, closer to social satire than outright endorsement. Success, the quote implies, isn't just earned; it's spent. Male status requires a supporting cast, and that support has a price tag. "Nothing to wear" becomes shorthand for the endless maintenance of respectability: parties attended, dinners hosted, appearances managed. The woman's closet is basically the PR department for his career.

Context matters. The line sits comfortably in early-to-mid 20th-century American humor, when mass advertising expanded desire and "keeping up" became a middle-class sport. It's also a wink at the gendered division of labor: the man "succeeds" in public while the woman's work and consumption are framed as frivolity. The sting is that it exposes a cultural bargain: we celebrate the breadwinner's triumphs while treating the household's constant spending - and the woman who often orchestrates it - as a punchline.