Wearing Mourning | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 24, 1858

Wearing Mourning.

THE custom of changing the entire apparel of a numerous family on the death of a relative, produces not unfrequently great privation and pecuniary embarrassment. Often has the little all, left by the industry and frugality of the deceased parent to support the widow and children, been sadly diminished, or altogether swept away, by being devoted to the purchase of unnecessary garments of mourning apparel, which, under a more healthy public opinion, might have been dispensed with, and the children supplied with other and far more necessary articles of comfort. We would not treat this question lightly or harshly; the custom is dictated by the most delicate impulses and sympathies of our better nature; still it is a custom which could well be dispensed with altogether.

We make these remarks in all kindness, upon what seems to us a useless expense, towards those who feel compelled by public opinion and habit to follow the custom. It seems to us that these trappings of grief are entirely useless where there is real grief, a hollow mockery where there is not. The objections against the custom are, it is useless, inconvenient and expensive. In Summer, mourning dresses are the most uncomfortable of any that are worn. And what use do they serve? To remind us that we are afflicted and bereaved? We need no outward memorial of that melancholy fact, nor do we desire to be pointed out to an unsympathizing world as one that asks public attention to the circumstance. Shall a suit of sable be worn because it is grateful to our own individual feelings—because it affords us solace and comfort in our bereavement? We can derive no consolation from such a source, or from any such outward signs of grief.

The custom is inconvenient. It throws the bustle and responsibility of making purchases and making garments, upon a family at the moment when, on every account they most imperatively require seclusion and retirement; when, worn out with watching, care, anxiety and grief, they need quiet and repose. To us there is a shocking unseemliness, had almost said sacrilege, in turning the house of death into a shop for the dress-maker! Who that has ever witnessed what usually passes upon such occasions—who that has seen the afflicted dragged forth to be dressed for the pageant, harrassed by inquiries about gowns and bonnets, or heard, intermingled with sighs, sobs, and tears of anguish, paltry discussions about the adjustment of a cap, or a ribbon—who has seen all this without seeing and feeling that it was unbecoming and ill-timed beyond all power of words to express. Who will be among the first to throw off this vassalage to the decrees of an oppressive custom—this servility to diseased public opinion? Many have done so already—who will imitate their laudable example?

There is nothing in the color of black which is in reality any more mournful, only for its associations, from habit, than in any other color. The fop in his suit of black does not look half so solemn as do some others in blue or drab. In China the color of mourning is white; in Turkey, blue or violet; in Egypt, yellow; in Ethiopia, brown. Each people, says a writer, profess to have their reasons for the particular color of their mourning apparel. White is supposed to denote purity; yellow, that death is the end of human existence here, as the leaves when they fall and the flowers when they fade, turn yellow; brown denotes the earth to which the dead return; blue expresses the happiness which it is hoped that the departed enjoy; and purple or violet, sorrow on one side and hope on the other, that color being a mixture of black and blue. In a dress devoid of ostentatious vanity, the dead can be as much respected in one color as another.—Sel.