Victorian life - Research Paper Example

Task: Victorian life Victoria’s case, it became habitual for families to observe intricate rites to venerate their deceased.These practices included dressing in mourning attire, holding an expensive interment, restraining social behavioural patterns within a span of time and the erection of an elaborate headstone on the grave (McCaffrey).Moreover, mourning attire was the family’s superficial embodiment of their sombre mood and emotions. The intricate stipulations for what to dress in and for what time were in past popular journals or home handbooks such as the Cassell’s, which were extremely popular with Victorian housewives (Angelpig).

In occasions with profound mourning, all attire was to be black, a symbolic depiction of pious darkness. Dressing patterns in the deepest bereavement ceremonies were of nonabsorbed silk or rather bombazine. For instance, most of the bereaved ladies in most Dickens’ books wore bombazine (Rothman).Manufacturers truncated most funeral dresses using crape, a rough silk with a funny creased manifestation that was fashioned by heat. Notably, crape mostly associates with bereavement occasions since it rarely combines well with other diverse types of attire (McCaffrey).

After an established time, the people would remove crape an instant called mourning slighting.Progressively, the color of attire would lighten as the mourning occasions ensued, to grey mauve and eventually white. This practice is half-mourning. As for jewelry, it was preserved to jet, a rigid and black coallike substance; sometimes pooled with woven hair of the dead. Thus, women had a serious dressing code, as opposed to their male counterparts.Men found it to be easy with dressing in the course of mourning.

Simply, they clad in their usual black suits alongside dark gloves and hatbands (Rothman). Children were not restricted to any mourning attire, though; young ladies would be in white garbs. Additionally, the duration of mourning was overly dependent n the relationship with the dead.Moreover, the diverse spans of mourning mandated by the society were to mirror people’s established grief episodes (Angelpig). Widows were to dress in complete mourning attire for two consecutive years. Other people seemingly suffered less.

For brood mourning their parents or the converse, the time span was one year. People were to distribute mourning attire to scores of people in the society with whom they would mourn together. Numerous business entities manned the trade, for instance Jay’s in Regent lane in London (Rothman). This store started in 1841 as a storehouse for mourning parties and had all conceivable mourning attire in stock.It operated in such a way that a household through with the mourning rituals would repeat sale of their attire to fend off jinx.

The society purported the keeping of mourning clothes, especially crape, after it ended to be a foul practice, one that would bring unfortunate luck to the family (Angelpig). Therefore, it meant that the family would have to buy mourning attire in future occasions.In conclusion, it is overtly clear that mourning practices in the Victorian epoch were pertinent, and everyone had to revere them. Additionally, the inhabitants would mourn their dearest for long periods of time. Moreover, it is also clear that mourning was a lucrative business venture for most investors (McCaffrey).

Works CitedAngelpig. Death and mourning. N.d. Web. 13 July 2012. McCaffrey, Nicole. Mourning Rituals and Customs in the Victorian Era. n.d. Web. 13 July 2012. Rothman, Heather. Mourning in the Victorian Era.n.d. Web. 13 July 2012. < http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agunn/teaching/enl3251/vf/pres/rothman.htm >