DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/E3W5-0T73
Defense Date
2010
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
History
First Advisor
Sarah Meacham
Abstract
Rituals surrounding death were social in addition to being religious. Virginians conveyed the status of the deceased through funerals, burials, gravestones, commemoration, and mourning. But these customs greatly differed according to gender, both in what they consisted of and who was responsible for carrying them out. This thesis examines wills, diaries, correspondence, grave markers, prints, and newspapers of eighteenth-century Virginians, which demonstrate the differences in the death customs of men and women. Because of men’s involvement in public activities like business and politics, they gave greater forethought into how acts of remembrance would reflect their positions. Women’s duties were centered on the home and family. This resulted in less elaborate death customs as well as greater responsibility for appropriately attending to the remembrance of others. Despite the overwhelmingly private nature of women’s funerals and burials, gravestones, death notices, and the responsibilities of widowhood briefly brought women into the public realm.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
May 2010