The History Hare - April 30, 2009

WIDOW'S WEEDS

by footnoteMaven

She wears the widow's weeds,
She gives the widow's mite.
At home a while, she in the autumn finds
The sea an object for reflecting minds,
And change for tender spirits; there she reads,
And weeps in comfort in her graceful weeds.

They were called Widow's Weeds, the dress of the recently widowed. Many have, incorrectly, ascribed the name to the fact that no bright colors were worn and the dark hues were closer to the weed than the flower.

Weed or weeds, the outward woe which women had been condemned to wear, was in fact the word for dress, attire, or clothing. Weed had previously been used to describe all manner of garment including the armor of a knight. The only remnant of this word remaining in modern English is the phrase, a "widow's weeds," the funeral attire of a recently bereaved widow.

A heartless wife who, instead of being grieved at the death of her husband, is rejoiced at it, should be taught that society will not respect her unless she pays to the memory of the man whose name she bears that "homage which vice pays to virtue," a commendable respect to the usages of society in the matter of mourning and of retirement from the world. Harper's 1878.

Victorians had elaborate sets of rules concerning mourning. For a widow in 1886 there were three stages of mourning lasting for a period of eighteen months. The three stages each carried a requirement of very specific garments and lengths of mourning time. The first stage was called deep mourning and lasted for six months. This first stage of mourning required that the widow be gowned entirely in black crape. Crape is a crinkled fabric referred to modernly as crepe. It is correctly referred to in Victorian times as crape.

The widow was expected to wear gowns of black crepe, Bombazine or Henrietta cloth. Both Bombazine and Henrietta cloth were a silk and wool blend. Bombazine was worn by the middle and lower classes. Henrietta cloth could be used by the upper classes as long as it was covered by crepe. During deep mourning the widow was required to wear black down to her stockings and under clothing.

A woman's head had to be covered in a crepe veil known as the weeping veil. This veil was a health risk causing irritation to the nose and eyes that could result in disease and blindness. Women were cautioned to wear a tulle patch over their faces to prevent contact with the crepe. Still, widows wore them.

All kinds of black fur and seal-skin were worn in the deep mourning stage. Dull jet ornaments or jewelry made of the deceased's hair were worn for the entire eighteen months, diamonds set as mementos or in wedding rings were allowed to be worn.

The widow was to appear as dull and unadorned as possible in her weeds. Kid leather gloves in black were worn. Long full cuffs of white linen or muslin, know as weepers, were worn at her wrists. It was believed the purpose was for wiping away her tears. Black mourning bonnets were also worn. The widow was given a choice of a black bonnet or a white crepe cap similar to that worn by Queen Victoria. The widow’s cap came to a peak on her forehead; this is where the term widow’s peak originated with regard to a V-pointed hairline.

While wearing deep mourning, a widow did not go into society, nor did she receive visitors.

Thankfully, after six months of mourning the heavy crepe veil could be removed. At the end of twelve months of deep mourning the cap or bonnet was removed and the widow moved into the second stage of mourning. The dress remained a dull black and shiny jet jewelry could be worn. This stage normally lasted for nine months.

At the end of the nine month second stage, the widow moved into the third stage of mourning referred to as half-mourning. The weeds could be of any fabric and the black color was not required to be lusterless. A veil was no longer required to be worn and there was a return to wearing her regular every day jewelry.

During half-mourning the widow eased herself back into more fashionable dress. This included the addition of color into the wardrobe. As the mourning period drew to a close the widow could add grey, mauve, purple, lavender, lilac, white and even at one point in history, dark red.

With the death of Queen Victorian the elaborate rituals of mourning died in Europe. In America the massive deaths attributed to the Civil War ended elaborate rituals here, although many mourning customs still survived. Books regarding the etiquette of mourning were written well into the 1900s.


I have added three mourning photographs to this article. After having read the stages and the rules for each; can you offer a guess as to the stage for each photograph?

Sources:

Palgrave, Francis Turner. Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics. New York : St. Martin's Press, 1903-24.

Hock, Hans Henrich. Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship. Berlin; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1996.

Condra, Jill. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through History. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2008.

Earle, Alice Morse. Two Centuries of Costume in America. London : Macmillan & Co., 1903.

"Mourning and Funeral Usages", April 17, 1886 [electronic edition]. Harper's Bazaar, Nineteenth Century Fashion Magazine, http://harpersbazaar.victorian-ebooks.com, 2005.

Photographs:

Grandmother in Mourning. G. W. Gillmore. Photograph (Cabinet Card). Unknown. Privately held by the footnoteMaven, Preston, Washington. 2009.

Woman Standing in Mourning. Anonymous. Photograph (Carte de Visite). Unknown. Privately held by the footnoteMaven, Preston, Washington. 2009.

Vignette Young Woman Mourning. Anonymous. Digital Image (Carte de Visite). Unknown. Privately held by the footnoteMaven, Preston, Washington. 2009. Displayed under the fair use doctrine for educational purposes. This is a digital copy of an item sold on eBay. Every effort was made to ascertain the owner, but with no success.