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Your Family Were Stuck With Awful Death Clothing
Traditionally, funeral garb has a pretty easy-to-follow dress code: all black, no cargo shorts. It isn't meant to be the height of fashion, just a way to show on the outside what you're feeling on the inside. But during the 19th century, the family was expected to dress for mourning not just during the funeral, but also for some time after, requiring mourners to cosplay as emo specters of death for anywhere up to two years.
Anna Ancher"Can we at least get this casket out of the heat?"
Upon hearing of a death, the entire family would be required to enter "deep mourning," a period where wearing black isn't just stylish, but mandatory. As time wore on, they then entered "'half mourning" which prescribed dark purple or green clothing trimmed with black, eventually culminating in leaving mourning altogether and tripping the sartorial light fantastic. The speed at which this took didn't depend on a family's devotion, but specifically on each family member's relationship to the deceased. For cousins, aunts, and general holidays-only blood relations, they'd only have to stay in mourning for six months. Children had to go for a full year. And for widows, a phenomenal two motherfucking years in deep mourning, followed by another six months of staying in half mourning.
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