No good-bye for you
I mentioned yesterday that the BBC photo of the crowd at Edhi’s funeral seemed to show only men. I’m now learning that in some majority-Muslim countries women are barred from all funerals, period. The Muslim Women’s League puts it this way:
The custom of excluding women from funeral ceremonies is a cultural tradition garbed in Islamic clothing that varies from one place to another, applied for example in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia but not necessarily in Egypt or Syria. Iran, considered by several media in the West as the most fundamentalist state in the Middle East, does not bar women from attending funeral services.
I find that heart-breaking.
Keeping women in their place is always the first priority. I mean, relax your vigilance for an instant, to honor the dead perhaps, and next thing you know those half-people are all over the place.
(Yes. It is heartbreaking.)
In Winchester Cathedral I vaguely remember hearing that women were not permitted at funerals during (I think) the Regency period (pretty sure he was talking about Jane Austen’s death, or the death of her father). It was unusual for her, a ‘civilian’, to be buried at the cathedral–normally those places were reserved for clergy or people who had served the country in war, but she had family connections to the cathedral. Wish I could remember more now, since it’s obviously relevant to this topic. Ah–several links for Regency-era authors mention this; here’s one example:
http://austenauthors.net/10-facts-regency-england/
In Cranford, the ladies become very concerned about a woman walking behind her sister’s coffin, which is apparently not done. Eventually, the sternest old woman becomes so worried about what everyone will think of the young woman that she joins her. The other ladies follow suit as the general view is that anything stern old Miss Jenkins does must be socially acceptable. It is mentioned that women do walk in funeral processions in Manchester but this has not spread to conservative Cranford.There’s nothing to suggest that women do not go to funerals at all, though.
Oh, thank you for that. I haven’t read Cranford in decades. I should rectify that.
Oppression and inequality move in mysterious ways.
The reason we have art of Mary holding dead Jesus in her arms is that dead bodies were unclean and thus, only women should touch them and prepare them for burial.