The Etiquette of Sorrow

If we are not intoning with mere lip-service our ‘blessed are the dead who die in the Lord,’ why this ostentation of crape, of bowed windows and darkened chambers? Either we do not really believe that our friends are happy, that we shall see them again, or we are hypocrites with this outward paraphernalia, this etiquette of sorrow. “Why should we darken our houses? The sunshine is sent to purify, to resurrect; its mission is to stricken lives as well as to frost-bound fields. 

Customs of Mourning for the Dead

A writer in a late number of the Christian Union has some very sensible remarks on the subject of modern funeral observances, as in singular contrast with the spirit and claims of a religious faith which looks beyond this world into the next, and recognizes the fact of a blessed immortality, and instances the case of David, who, after his seven days of abandonment to the most extravagant grief for the loss of his child, arose and “washed and anointed himself, and changed his apparel and did eat.” Our funeral observances, and the set fashion of mourning, are, says this writer, “in as direct contrast with the manly resignation of the Hebrew King as they are in glaring contradiction to the professions we make of faith in the present happiness and continued existence of those dear ones taken from our sight. 

If we really believe that it is well with the child for whom the mother's arms are aching and empty, if we are not intoning with mere lip-service our ‘blessed are the dead who die in the Lord,’ why this ostentation of crape, of bowed windows and darkened chambers? Why do we shun the sunlight and avert our faces from all gladness, and hold ourselves disloyal to the dead if a smile or laugh steals upon us unawares? Either we do not really believe that our friends are happy, that we shall see them again, or we are hypocrites with this outward paraphernalia, this etiquette of sorrow. “Why should we darken our houses? The sunshine is sent to purify, to resurrect; its mission is to stricken lives as well as to frost-bound fields. 

In the heavy hours, weighed down with the unnecessary gloom and circumstance of the customary funeral rites, surely we have need of all that can cheer, and warm, and inspire us. Worn out with watching, it may be, depressed with the care, the suffering, with all that has gone before, the mourning household is the one of all others that should throw open its casements, should gladden itself with flowers and the comfort that twitters through the chirp of even the city sparrows. “Some people seem to think they show tenderest memory of the dead by allowing despondency to develop into ill-health; they cultivate illness and weakness as a fine art of sorrowful remembrance. Robust health that waits on good appetite and accustomed exercise, that is springy of step and full of energy, is a reproach to them; it savors of disrespect. Could we but see that the truest and tenderest way of honoring our dear ones is to live our honest lives right on in the usual way, adding, if possible, to our work that which their tired hands lay down! 

“We pay dearly for the etiquette which would keep us sitting in darkness when a midden impulse comes to hear some music, see a bright picture, or visit a friend in whose voice and eyes we find both. ‘But the impulse does not come to true mourners.’ Ah, the heart beats humanly enough beneath the heaviest veil. Decorum teaches us to repress each impulse to the light, ‘if it come too soon.’ Shallow, indeed, is the loneliness and loss that one maps out the months into districts of dress and behavior, and let in the sunshine and the world hand in hand by a computed time table and registry of days.” – Pacific Rural Press, 1875

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia