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Original poster

Was this normal funeral behaviour in the 60s?

135 replies

Jaggypinecone · 30/10/2019 09:02

My grandad died in 1960 and apparently my Gran didn't attend his funeral. I asked my mother if she had gone but she had no recollection - she would have been 32 at the time. I am assuming therefore that she didn't go as surely she'd have remembered her own father's funeral.

Reason I'm asking is that my Mum is still a bit peculiar about funerals. She always comes up with an excuse not to go to one, even if it's one of her closest friends, saying oh it's too far etc. etc. She'll only change her mind when she realises that me and my siblings will be attending and she can get a lift there -or realises how bad form it looks if we turn up and she doesn't-

OP posts:
Happityhap · 30/10/2019 14:03

When I was young, in Scotland, I was aware that women didn't go to funerals.
When my Gran died in 1969, tho, I was at the funeral with my mum and brother (we were teenagers).
I don't know if it had become usual by then, tho.

soundsystem · 30/10/2019 14:04

I'm from the same part of the world as you OP and when I was a child (30 years ago) women did go to funerals in my experience

ThreeLittleDots · 30/10/2019 14:05

Funerals are very much the end point

See, no - I feel that death is the end point - and can understand why some don't attend or want a funeral.

fotheringhay · 30/10/2019 14:06

I've never heard of this before! What on earth is the logic? Just another opportunity to exclude women? I don't buy the making sandwiches argument

MissDew · 30/10/2019 14:07

All our family funerals have been attended by most of the remaining family. To date at least.

In Wales where women are not expected to go to, let's say, her late husband's funeral. It's generally assumed that they will be at home being comforted by other female friends and relatives. As well as making the food if the mourners have been invited for refreshments.

We seem to have booked catering of one sort or another for family funerals so far. Broad as it's long tbh.

As for pregnant women not going to funerals in case the spirit of the deceased enter their baby or it being bad luck to come home to an empty house after a funeral. Well, it's a free country.

Olliephaunt4eyes · 30/10/2019 14:07

It was the norm in my family in the 1990s to mostly not go to the graveyard - I didn't go to my mum's burial, just the service and then back to the house for the Wake. My dad and uncle went to the crematorium. Same for my grandparents funeral - one or two men would go to the grave. Women and children never did. I was very weirded out the first time I went to a funeral where that wasn't the case.

Scots/Irish family.

Original poster
Jaggypinecone · 30/10/2019 14:08

My Mum was never one to express emotions much, it’s how she was brought up. But FWIW, I think being exposed to death and funerals is healthy. My first funeral I was aged 28 and it was my Granny’s. I felt a bit lost and that I’d wished I’d known more about it all from an earlier age. I like the idea of an Irish wake where everyone comes together to grieve and celebrate the life of the deceased.

OP posts:
GrumpyHoonMain · 30/10/2019 14:08

Amongst my friends, growing up, it wasn’t usual for any woman or child (Hindu, Muslim, Catholic or Buddhist) to go to a funeral. We would often just all pitch in to help with the housework / food for the wake.

MissDew · 30/10/2019 14:10

See, no - I feel that death is the end point - and can understand why some don't attend or want a funeral.

A funeral is the last goodbye.

I get it why some people do not want a funeral. Don't want to attend a funeral. OK, there may be reasons there too. But, not going to funerals because you don't like them. I can't help but wonder if there's a reason behind that.

GothMummy · 30/10/2019 14:14

Nearly 15 years ago in the UK my husbands family did not want me to go to a family funeral as I was pregnant at the time and it was considered bad luck. They are British, lived in the Midlands for generations.... And not very superstitious about anything else either. I stayed at home rather than upset and worry them in the end.

ThreeLittleDots · 30/10/2019 14:16

A funeral is the last goodbye

For some people. For others, 'meh'. That person isn't there - nothing to say goodbye to in my opinion. No deeper reason or anything wrong with me.

I go to funerals because other people want me there, not one iota for myself or the person who has died.

ThreeLittleDots · 30/10/2019 14:18

But, not going to funerals because you don't like them. I can't help but wonder if there's a reason behind that

Of course for some people there may well be other reasons. But none of them mean that they should be compelled to go, or thought 'peculiar' by other people.

Presthoney · 30/10/2019 14:28

Certainly in Wales it was the case that women didn’t attend funerals, it’s to do with non-conformist tradition. My Grandmother didn’t go to her husband’s funeral or her son’s funeral when he died at the age of 13. I’m pretty sure that when she dies there’ll be an instruction in her will requesting men only at her funeral. Fortunately it’s a dying tradition!

Time40 · 30/10/2019 14:35

I have never heard of women not going to a funeral before. Never! I find it weird and fascinating - how come I have lived in the UK for my entire (rather longish) life, and I never knew about this?

I went to my grandma's funeral in West Yorkshire in 1979. All the women in the family went.

Redglitter · 30/10/2019 14:42

My Grandfathers both died in the 1960s in Glasgow. My Grans and my Mum went to both. I think my Mum was 20 and not yet married to my Dad when his Father died but she still went to the funeral

1forAll74 · 30/10/2019 14:48

I have been to lots of funerals over the years,as it seemed the polite thing to do in various family situations. Mostly,they were burials.which I truly hate. Most of my family have died now,so I don't wish to go to any more funerals.

The last funeral that I attended,was for my late ex husband,he had remarried, and his funeral, a burial,was horrible and hideous,and the thought of it has put me off attending any more.

Woeisme1 · 30/10/2019 14:55

@RuffleCrow I’m not going to lie it was heavy!! There were 4 women and 2 men.

wendywoopywoo222 · 30/10/2019 15:05

I attended my brothers funeral in 1976 when I was 11 and a lot of the older generation were scandalised that the rest of the kids were there.

Not heard of it only being men that attended.

rvby · 30/10/2019 15:16

I would imagine that in some areas of the British Isles, that part of converting the masses away from paganism or whatever previous observances, was encouraging women to stay away because of the once common practice of graveside keening / grief-singing. It was something that typically only women did. So if you kept the women away, you kept the pagan element away, as it were.

It may have also been an element of converting english folk away from Catholicism, which would have been more inclusive of that sort of thing (Catholicism typically being fairly absorbent of regional pagan practices), and towards protestant or later Puritan practices, where anything emotional or even mildly heathen/ritualistic was severely rooted out.

It is also possible that there was always a "division of labour" in some communities - women are in charge of life (weddings, births), men are in charge of death (war, funerary practices).

KindOranges · 30/10/2019 15:18

Ppl love to say a prayer to the deceased.

FOR the deceased, not to them!

My sister has carried a coffin at two family funerals in the past few years and something about that makes me very uncomfortable.

Why, @Josephine?

rvby · 30/10/2019 15:19

I am not British but my family has roots in Hampshire and as a child I was not included in funerals, and my female relatives had spotty attendance as well, it definitely wasn't a priority for females to go along. I was included in the funeral teas afterwards. Great crumpets.

Strawberrycreamsundae · 30/10/2019 15:20

I too was unaware that there's a custom in some areas that women don't go to funerals, certainly I don't know of that happening in SW England.
I'm intending to donate my body to medicine so there won't be a funeral or cremation, just a good meal in a pub for anyone who cares to attend.

bigbluebus · 30/10/2019 15:21

I didn't go to any of my Grandparents funeral in the 1970's (I was a teenager) which I've only started to reflect on in recent years - as I now seem to be going to too many funerals. I pretty sure that my parents went though.

Whitleyboy · 30/10/2019 15:28

Often womren didn't go to funerals.

A friend of my cousin didn't go to her husband's funeral about a decade ago and didn't go to her baby granddaughter's funeral a few years ago either. Her son and DIL were not impressed.

My mum has a pact with her sibling that they won't attend each others funerals which I think is really weird. Mum is super-sensitive and changes the subject when there is any talk of aging, Illness or dying.

Whitleyboy · 30/10/2019 15:29

*women not womren.