The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [79]
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
They might rashly conclude that twentieth-century America was a nation of abjectly imitative conformists, devoted to machine-made gadgetry and mass-produced art of a debased quality; that its dominant theology was a weird mixture of primitive superstitions and superficial attitudes towards death, overlaid with a distinct tendency towards necrophilism.
Where did our burial practices come from? There is little scholarship on the subject. Thousands of books have been written describing, cataloguing, theorizing about the funeral procedures of ancient and modern peoples from the Aztecs to the Zulus; but about contemporary American burial practices almost nothing has been written.
The National Funeral Directors Association, aware of this omission and anxious to correct it, commissioned two writers, Robert W. Habenstein and William M. Lamers, to explore the subject and to come up with some answers. The resulting studies, The History of American Funeral Directing and Funeral Customs the World Over, bear the imprint of the National Funeral Directors Association and were the subject of a continuing promotion campaign by that organization: “Buy one for each clergyman in your community!” “Place them in your libraries!” are the slogans. The campaign has had some success. In fact, in most libraries these volumes sponsored by the undertaking trade are the only ones to be found on the subject of the American funeral.
The official historians of American undertaking describe the origin of our burial practices as follows: “As a result of a long, slow development, with its roots deep in the history of Western civilization, it is the common American mind today that the dead merit professional funeral services from a lay occupational group. These services include embalming, the preparation of the body for final viewing, a waiting period between death and disposition, the use for everyone of a casket that is attractive and protects the remains, a dignified and ceremonious service with consideration for the feelings of the bereaved, and an expression of the individual and group beliefs.…” Elsewhere they assert: “The roots of American funeral behavior extend back in a direct line several thousand years to early Judaeo-Christian beliefs as to the nature of God, man and the hereafter.… Despite the antiquity of these roots their importance as regards the treatment of the dead in the world that commonly calls itself Christian today cannot be overemphasized.”
In two misinformation-packed paragraphs, we are assured not only that American funerals are based on hallowed custom and tradition, but that they conform to long-held religious doctrine. There is more than a hint of warning in these words for the would-be funeral reformer; he who would be bold enough to make light of or tamper with the fundamental beliefs and ancient traditions of a society in so sensitive an area as behavior towards its dead had better think twice.
A “long, slow development, with its roots deep in the history of Western civilization,” or a short, fast sprint with its roots deep in moneymaking? A brief look backward would seem to establish that there is no resemblance between the funeral practices of today and those of even seventy-five to one hundred years ago, and that there is nothing in the “history of Western civilization” to support the thesis of continuity and gradual development of funeral customs. On the contrary, the salient features of the contemporary American