At my granddad’s funeral (and my aunt’s), the pallbearers were all men, and the the coffin was carried on their shoulders, with the pallbearers’ arms grasping the back of the man next to them.
My religion doesn’t allow women to even be at the burial, so we can’t be pallbearers anyway, but even so, I would not have wanted to do it even given the opportunity.
thank you for that link sunfish. my mum wants wood, simple, and plain. i like the look of those. now i’m wondering where to store it 'till needed.
For my grandma’s funeral several years back, they had the one grandkid from each family be a pall bearer. I was one, another was my female cousin who was an only child. We didn’t have to carry the casket, but we did lower it by ropes slung underneath into the grave. She panicked, didn’t let the rope go as smoothly as she should have, and actually whispered, “Don’t drop it!” I had visions of the casket flipping over and my grandma falling out. :eek:
I have been a pall bearer a few times and that was the only time with a woman, and the only time someone panicked. It probably had less to do with her being a woman and more to do with it being her first pall bearer experience.
Tradition in my family has always been for the men to be the pallbearers. I’ve been one several times. I had never really thought about the reasons, but I expect the ones already mentioned are the main ones:
[ol]
[li]Upper body strength – even the very fit farm women in the family did not typically have as much upper body strength as the men[/li][li]Attire – skirts and heels are the norm among the family’s women at funerals, though that’s not an absolute[/li][li]Height – this may be more peculiar to my family. Particularly on my mom’s side, the women tend to be very short. Having pallbearers of roughly equal height is a big plus.[/li][/ol]
We always carried the casket at waist height, although the church steps made things interesting as we adjusted to keep the body level on the way down to the hearse.
All the pallbearers at the funerals I’ve been to were male. My grandmother was a large woman, and the pallbearers had difficulty, but no dropping.
The worst was my mother’s funeral. She was morbidly obese, so had to have one of those oversized caskets. The day she was buried was one of the coldest on record in Michigan, and my half brother, BIL (at the time), a couple of uncles, and the BIL’s best friend (and former weightlifter) had to carry it out. I had hoped they would have the wheeled gurney, but nope. They muscled the casket in and out at the cemetery. My half brother said later it was one of the heaviest things he’d ever lifted, both physically and emotionally.
So nope, we grow’m large in my family. We need to be muscled into the ground.
Hopefully it won’t be needed for some time yet, but I’ve been informed that my grandfather has requested his six oldest grandchildren as his pallbearers. This will actually result in an even split, three male, three female, including me. My mother assured me that it will be a ceremonial thing and I won’t have to actually carry anything, but I’m still dreading it.
Male, 5’ 7" pallbearer at my mother’s funeral. Because of her illness she was thinner than a concentration camp victim and I was surprised at the weight of the casket. There were 6 men carrying it a short distance over a short flight of stairs. It wasn’t anything a woman of nominal strength couldn’t do because the load can easily be born on most adult frames. However, in the same light, all of the load is transferred at the wrist/hand so a person should be able to carry at least 100 lbs. in a gripping manner for the necessary distance. That could be augmented with a wrist strap of some fashion to avoid dropping it. A person needs to be able to curl at least 100 lbs up/down the distance needed to match up to a hearse (at this point both hands can be used). When you think of the difference in the weight of a 10 lb bowling bowl vs a 16 lb. ball on your wrist it is easier to understand how this becomes a problem with a 50 to 100 lb load that shifts with each step.
With that said, unless there was some personal need to be involved with this process I see no reason for women to engage in this. I don’t see it as a strictly male function but it does naturally lend itself in that respect. I like The Flying Dutchmen’s perspective of life and death and the role gender plays but if there were a need for a female pall bearer I would go with 8 instead of 6.
No problem- New Melleray Abbey stocks prefinished caskets in standard sizes and has next-day delivery!
I remember that website from years back- they make such beautiful things. The ceramic urns are new- some monk scored himself a potter’s wheel!
Seriously, you might be interested in who they are.