"When God Takes Away": Gendered Death Customs in Eighteenth-Century Virginia

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.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Year dc:date.available

2010

Author dc:creator

• Tremper, Kristin

Contributors dc:contributor

• Sarah Meacham

• Virginia
• Women
• Family
• Gender
• Death
• Funerary Practices
• Widowhood
• Eighteenth-Century
• Gravestones
• Mourning
• Arts and Humanities
• History

Statement dc:rights

• © The Author

Identifier

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/74

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1073