A Talk in a Month: Our Barren Customs

We still have old customs that we cling to as if they were a sacred obligation from which we may not swerve a hair's breadth — and today I shall speak of only one point, which I make the subject of my inquiry.

Woman's duty in condolences

We lose someone dear to us, and friends and neighbors hasten to offer the dues of condolence; every bereaved woman feels the effect of these visits in somewhat consoling her for her loss, and each of us appreciates the worth of the noble feeling that moves every lady to share in our affliction.

But do you not see with me, Madam, that this sharing often exceeds the intended limit and turns into a vexation that makes the calamity more dreadful and greater?

In the first days of her bereavement, the bereaved lady has many duties: setting the affairs of the house in order, managing the business of living, tending to the children and their comfort and health — not to mention her being obliged to sew the mourning clothes, which she may have to sew with her own hand in consideration of her economic circumstances. Can I possibly know when and how this lady is to carry out her necessary duties so long as the visits begin at nine in the morning and go on until twelve at night without interruption, without the bereaved woman being able to move her feet for even ten minutes in the day, or talk with her children for half an hour, or look into her own affairs for another half hour?

Shall we call this consolation and condolence and sympathy, when it is, as every sensible, thinking person sees, a means of increasing the calamity, the distress, and the annoyance where the opposite is intended?

Which lady among us does not have a thousand duties awaiting her when she rises in the morning, in her house and outside it? And which lady of moderate means does not need to prepare her children's food with her own hand — or, if wealthy, to oversee her maid and her house every morning?

I ask every lady of penetrating mind and sound reason to strive with me and join me in fighting this custom and abolishing morning condolence visits, leaving freedom of thought and room for work to the bereaved mistress of the house, so that we do not make her calamity more dreadful by burdening her with ourselves and depriving her children of the pleasure of enjoying her affection, love, and care.

Let woman be a light burden upon her sister woman — and if she demands her right to share in man's work, then let her share with him too in these customs, from which he has freed himself and in which he has brought his feeling to moderation, setting duty a limit that makes it a thing to be thanked for, without excess. Perhaps this complaint will find listening ears, for no one is more fit than woman to do justice to her sister woman by lifting the injustice from her shoulders and reining in customs so deeply rooted in us that they have almost become part of our nature.