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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011

  In a light book I was reading the other day set in 1905 the main male character, disguising himself, looks at his hand and takes off his wedding ring. I thought this was anachronistic but may be wrong. Certainly a man in my father’s day didn’t wear a wedding ring but did men before that. It seems quite common now for men to wear rings – my husband doesn’t but then nor do I. People in the past had various ways of showing a relationship though perhaps not necessarily as formally as a ring does now. They cut off curls and carried them in lockets or frames; they had pictures put into matching frames; they had matching love mugs. But when did they begin to exchange rings? Or when did men begin giving women rings for engagements and weddings? Did both traditions begin at the same time? Did the plain wedding ring come first and was then followed by the more expensive diamond engagement ring, or vice versa? Did people first begin to wear engagement rings as a sort of ‘hands-off’ warning to others?
  
  The radio this morning had research from a woman into death practices in various countries and she mentioned 19th century practices of keeping people’s ashes in pieces of jewellery. Now there are places which can turn ashes into fireworks or jewels. And as well as burial or cremation, you can be freeze-dried and shattered or in Scotland there is resummation, which came from meat processing and dissolves the body in water and acid. (When I hear these things, my religious upbringing becomes noticeable and I feel a little uncomfortable about these ideas, even though in theory I feel that once you’re dead it doesn’t matter what happens to you.)
  
  New Zealand has very liberal ideas of burial (as it does with marriage) – you can be buried by anyone anywhere, and there aren’t too many rules of where ashes can be scattered. In Britain she said it was either religious or by a humanist, and in Scandinavian countries their separation of state and religion isn’t that long ago and ashes are owned by the state. I think that’s what she said, though perhaps I have it wrong. We also in New Zealand have funerals soon after the death (I was surprised at how long after a death British funerals are – and one of our relatives had to wait while his rellies went on holiday first!) and because it is encouraged for any friends or colleagues to get up and say a few words they can be quite long – an hour and a half is not uncommon. (Maori tangi are considerably longer, taking several days and causing problems for employees in the past, though employers now seem more relaxed about this.) Funerals here have all sorts of props, photos, videos, harnesses or motorbikes or whatever demonstrates someone’s interest will sit on the stage at our local hall where funerals generally are held. I don’t know whether this came with a relaxation of rules or vice versa.
  
  In America it seems to be traditional for dead people to be held in funeral parlours for people to come and visit and the woman on our radio said traditionally people died in their own homes and were held there and people would visit; outsourcing with funeral directors arranging the body and providing grief counselling etc is modern, and indeed there is a trend back to having the body kept at home for visitors again now. But there must have been rules about how long a body could be kept at home before burial. You couldn’t have someone kept a year or so, surely. What were the rules in earlier times, say the mid-19th century, in Britain?
  
  Maybe this is not completely historical, but some of it is.
  
  Cheers, Caro.
  
  
  
  

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  Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011

  Hi Caro,
  The woman on the radio wasn't Sheila Harper from the University of Sydney by any chance? She's written lots of interesting stuff on death practices as have Jenny Hockney, Janet Draper and Duncan Sayer.
  One of her papers was on the increasing prevalence of including what could be described as grave goods in the coffin, particularly those which were meaningful to the deceased or encapsulate aspects of their identity. She also talks about the largely American practice of displaying items in the funeral home along with the dead. Of course this is all intriguing in its resemblance to practices in the past and the insights it can give us since the bereaved today can be interrogated as to their motives and intentions.
  
  Funerals up here can be pretty much whatever you wish, I had no celebrant at my husband's, it was entirely DIY, and are usually performed within a few days of the death although in my husband's case it had to be delayed because my daughter was travelling in India and, pre mobiles, it took a while to get in touch.
  
  Ashes can be scattered almost anywhere although I understand that those who wish to to be eternally incorporated in the grass of their chosen football ground need permission. My MIL's were scattered on the loch beside where she lived but that turned into something approaching a sit com when my husband slipped on the algae on the jetty going down to the water, he and the ashes went up in the air and the wind blew the remains everywhere and he now had blood streaming from where he had bashed his head on the concrete.
  She always an awkward old so-and-so!
  
  

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  Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011

  She was Sally Raudon and she was researching during a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust trip. Three months travel to England, Scotland, Norway and Sweden to investigate how funerals and death care are conducted in countries with strong secular traditions. I am uncertain exactly why, she seems to be in a public relations firm. But the trust allows NZers to travel to do research and write about it.
  
  One of the things she said was that people are wanting to spend more time with their dead and in NZ this is assumed to come from Maori traditions, but it is something that is happening in many countries. I am having difficulty envisaging my husband wanting to have my dead body in the same room as he is.
  
  I don't know about Scotland and England but apparently here lots of people don't collect the ashes and undertakers are left with a lot of spare ones. I remember the radio talking about this once before and asking people to please go and get them.
  
  Most funerals I go to are in our hall with a celebrant but I went to one a while ago held in the lawn of their house by the sea on a squally day with much laughter amid the tears. And fishing rods all over the place as he was a keen fisherman.
  
  Back to history, I read a book a while ago called Necropolis by Catherine Arnold about London and its death practices but I don't recall much about just how people in the past dealt with funerals. Main memory is of the stench of rotting and piled up bodies in crypts before the cemeteries on the edge of London were formed. You wouldn't have wanted a smelly dead body in your home for days in July, would you? I know at times only men followed the coffin, but what happened before that? Who would have dressed the body?
  
  Caro.
  
  

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  Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011

  But when did they begin to exchange rings? Or when did men begin giving women rings for engagements and weddings? Did both traditions begin at the same time? Did the plain wedding ring come first and was then followed by the more expensive diamond engagement ring, or vice versa? Did people first begin to wear engagement rings as a sort of ‘hands-off’ warning to others? 
  
  Wiki has this small piece of info re wedding rings
  
  "Church of England (1662 Book of Common Prayer) - "With this RING I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."[5]"
  
  And this on engagements
  "Betrothal rings were used during Roman times, but weren't generally revived in the Western world until the 13th century.[1] The first well-documented use of a diamond ring to signify engagement was by the Archduke Maximilian of Austria in imperial court of Vienna in 1477, upon his betrothal to Mary of Burgundy.[1]
  The origin of European engagement in marriage practice is found in the Jewish law (Torah), first exemplified by Abraham, and outlined in the last Talmudic tractate of the Nashim (Women) order, where marriage consists of two separate acts, called erusin (or kiddushin, meaning sanctification), which is the betrothal ceremony, and nissu'in or chupah,[1] the actual ceremony for the marriage. Erusin changes the couple's interpersonal status, while nissu'in brings about the legal consequences of the change of status. (However, in the Talmud and other sources of Jewish law there is also a process, called shidduchin, corresponding to what today is called engagement. Marrying without such an agreement is considered immoral.[2])
  
  This was later adopted in Ancient Greece as the gamos and engeysis rituals, although unlike in Judaism the contract made in front of witness was only verbal.[3] The giving of a ring was eventually borrowed from Judaism by Roman marriage law, with the fiancé presenting it after swearing the oath of marriage intent, and presenting of the gifts at the engagement party.[4]"
  
  
  I have both of my grandmother's engagement and wedding rings, she would have been married around 1920. They were both from working class backgrounds and neither flush with money so I assume that the giving of an engagement ring must have been a fairly common practice by that time.
  
  In the Orthodox church a betrothal is a formal affair, blessed by a priest and is almost a binding as a wedding. Betrothal rings are exhanged by both parties, a ring with some form of stone for the female and a gold affair, similar to a signet ring, for the male. Then later, both male and female gold bands are exchanged at the wedding and the male wears his wedding ring with his engagement ring in the same manner as the wife. Although, in Orthodoxy both rings are worn on the right hand and not the left as in western Europe.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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  Posted by Peggy Monahan (U2254875) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011

  It seems quite common now for men to wear rings 
  
  I would have thought that at certain periods in history and in certain classes the wearing of rings by men - and rings with gemstones in them too - was FAR more widespread than it is now.

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  Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011

  I think you are correct Peggy, but I think we should keep in mind that Caro is referring to the Antipodes where it was quite rare for men to wear rings. Rings were also considered dangerous to wear for farmers and tradesmen etc, the risk being that they could catch in machinery.
  
  As a child in Australia, it was almost exclusively male European immigrants who wore wedding rings. Australian men of my father's generation or earlier would never have worn them and it has only been in the last 25yrs or so that it has become common.

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  Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011

  There would have ben a local woman who was always sent for to do the 'laying-out' when someone died. Nurses used to do it if someone died in hospital. When my mother died, I did the preliminaries, including dressing her, before the undertakers arrived (I was in a nursing division of the SJAB at the time, and it was in our nursing book)
  
  Not only were funerals only followed by men, they were usually at night too. No idea when that started or how long it lasted, though. Parson Woodforde mentions it.

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