{"id":2365,"date":"2012-02-15T15:52:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T15:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/02\/mourning-in-america-whitney-houston-and-the-social-speed-of-grief.html"},"modified":"2012-02-15T15:52:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-15T15:52:00","slug":"mourning-in-america-whitney-houston-and-the-social-speed-of-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/02\/mourning-in-america-whitney-houston-and-the-social-speed-of-grief.html","title":{"rendered":"Mourning in America: Whitney Houston and the Social Speed of Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In England in the late 19th century, death was a highly ritualized affair. Wives were expected to wear special dresses \u2014 black, conservative, often accessorized with \u201cweeping veils\u201d \u2014 for up to four years following the death of their husbands; if you\u2019d lost a sister or brother, six months of mourning garb was the norm. \u201cFull mourning\u201d (lasting for a year and a day after the death), \u201csecond mourning\u201d (the nine months after that), and \u201chalf mourning\u201d (the three-six months after that) weren\u2019t suggestions or ironies; they were phases to be followed, and strictly.<\/p>\n

To modern sensibilities, the whole idea of mourning suits and widows\u2019 weeds seems extremely quaint and ridiculously confining and, overall, just what it is: Victorian. But the clothes and the strict guidelines for donning and doffing them were part of a larger purpose, which was to create a framework, an agreed-upon system of customs and rituals, that people could turn to amid the chaos of a death. The formal observance of a loss \u2014 whether for seven days or four years \u2014 carved a space for mourning that fit, by communal fiat, into the life of the community in question. By giving people an agreed-upon period of bereavement, the rituals also gave them, implicitly, an agreed-upon time to move on.
Read the rest here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In England in the late 19th century, death was a highly ritualized affair. Wives were expected to wear special dresses \u2014 black, conservative, often accessorized with \u201cweeping veils\u201d \u2014 for up to four years following the death of their husbands; if you\u2019d lost a sister or brother, six months of mourning garb was the norm. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMourning in America: Whitney Houston and the Social Speed of Grief<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In England in the late 19th century, death was a highly ritualized affair. 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