Three ways to arrange a funeral: Mortuary variation in the modern West

Abstract

Why do funeral practices vary between modern Western countries? In the mid-nineteenth century, managing the rapidly expanding number of corpses had to be controlled and rationalized, but this control could be exercised by business, the municipality, or the church, leading to three pure types of funeral organization (commercial, municipal, religious) and a number of mixed types. These institutional types interacted with wider cultural factors to create in each country an identifiable national solution to the problem of disposing of the dead in a mobile, urban, modern society. By the late twentieth century, a global demand for more freedom and individuality spawned reform movements, targeting a different bastion of institutional power in each country.

Keywords:

• Funerals
• funeral reform
• comparative
• ideal types

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the following for ideas and information: Peter Clark, Grace Davie, Douglas Davies, John Harris, Glennys Howarth, Jorge Rodriguez; and among my students from the wonderfully international class of 2002 – 3, particular thanks to Ann-Sofie Arvidsson, Chris Cassidy, Emily Court, Mary McKenzie, and Simone Raspagni. I am particularly indebted to Christie Davies, Kathleen Garces-Foley, John Pearce, Julie Rugg, and the anonymous Mortality reviewers for their insightful comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

Biographical Notes

Tony Walter is a Reader in Sociology at The University of Reading.

I have written elsewhere on cultural differences concerning burial (Walter, 1993), and bereavement (Walter, 1999).

For the classic study of these in the USA, see Sudnow (1967).

There is a considerable literature in French, and a modest one in German, neither of which I review here.

In the USA and Australia, some burial grounds were never under church control.

As Kellehear (1984) argues, the term “denial” is of little or no use as a sociological resource. As a sociological topic, however, it is fascinating. Funeral reformers damn the cosmeticized corpse in the open-casket American funeral as a denial of death, while American funeral directors damn the reformers' closed-casket slimmed-down funerals in the very same terms. In a culture in which psychological health has, for many, become the ultimate touchstone, all parties use “denial” as a rhetorical club with which to hit any death practices they disapprove of (Cahill, 1995; Lofland, 1978).

The male gender is used advisedly. As a number of studies have shown, the mid nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries saw a decline in female deathworkers in favour of the new, and largely male, specialists (Adams, 1993; Habenstein, 1962b, p. 229), though recently more females are being found among, for example, funeral directors (Laderman, 2003) and pathologists.

An exception may be Sweden, where the co-operative Fonus organizes about a third of funerals (Habenstein & Lamers, 1963, p. 397; Myrvold, 2004). Though the largest group of funeral directors in the UK are the “Co-Op”, this effectively functions as a capitalist business.

Canada is very similar to the USA in this respect.

I do not claim this transfer of functions is total. For example, one Californian correspondent informs me in 2004 that in her local newspaper's obituary column over half announced the service at churches rather than funeral homes. And the tradition of church yards in New England and New Mexico remains strong.

A note on terminology. A cremator is the machine that burns bodies. In the USA, a crematory is the building that houses the cremator or cremators. In Europe, a crematorium is the building that houses not only the cremator(s), but also a chapel or hall in which a public funeral service may be held.

See www.eternalreefs.com and www.lifegem.com

An intriguing case concerns the popularity of viewing unidentified corpses in the public morgue in nineteenth century Paris. Intended by the authorities as a way of establishing their identity, it became a popular leisure activity in its own right (Higonnet, 1984).

Since 1991, at the local tax office.

Humanist funerals are available also in most other European countries (Pearce, 2001).

In other contexts, for example Bali and Japan, cremation can be a highly elaborate and expensive affair.

There is no scope to explore this further here, but the obvious explanation that cremation thrives in crowded countries where there is no space for burial does not hold up. There is a poor correlation, both between and within countries, between density of population and cremation. Even where there is a shortage of grave space, other factors must also operate before burial is replaced by cremation (see Bernstein, 2000; Prothero, 2001; Walter, 1993).

One humanist officiant told me that his woodland burial clients object not so much to the banality of the municipal crematorium but to its overly churchy furnishings.

Whether Sikh, Hindu, or Muslim immigrants accept the Swedish church's role, however, is another matter (Myrvold, 2004).

I do not claim it is only a result of migration. For the Victorian working class in Britain, the fear of being buried a pauper was crucial (Richardson, 1989).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tony Walter

Biographical Notes Tony Walter is a Reader in Sociology at The University of Reading.