Why spouses cannot send their partner to burial or cremation?

Often family and friends have questions about traditional funeral customs.

Usually, there are no logical or scientific answers to back up; what and why a person does what they do at a funeral! and when there are more questions than answers, people will tend to be disobedient to the traditional customs, even despise, and choose not to follow it.

Once, a friend asked: “Why can't a spouse cannot sent their husband or wife to their final resting place?”

He felt it was unreasonable, a couple has been together for so many years, yet in their last moment, we do not let them say their last goodbye.

If one cannot send their love one off by tradition, shouldn't it be at least an explanation?

Today's people look into logic and science for many reasons. Asking a reason for folk taboos is as good as proving the existence of God. Younger generation prefers logic and reason, if there is no reasoning, then there’s no point to follow the tradition.

Hence, if a spouse still wants to send their husband or wife off, is it still allowed? Let's look into some research and findings before we answer this question.

There is a common believed in southern Fujian:

• A husband will be hungry when he sends his wife to a funeral
• when a wife sends a husband's funeral, the rice jar is often empty

?This means to send the burial of the spouse will lead to poverty for the surviving bedsiders. (Interview with Wen Zhanhua, July 10, 2009, Taiping) (Lee 133).

This was the teaching passed down through generations without proper explanation of ‘why’ and left the younger generation to wonder about the superstition of the tradition. Hence, hesitant to follow such practices.

Another belief written by Yang Jiongshan, an author in Taiwan, stated that 'Taiwanese do not stipulate that when a spouse has died, the family cannot send flowers or a funeral.' It seems like this kind of custom is true to how Taiwanese culture works.

“Lives are like rivers: Eventually they go where they must. Not where we want them to.

Richard Russo, author and screenwriter”        

If the living spouse intends to remarry, he/she has to bury or send off their deceased spouse so as not to be troubled by their soul. Anyone who does not send funerals has probably chosen to stay a widow or widower.

Coincidentally, it turns out that Indian folk customs also have this taboo. Indian women cannot be sending off their spouse, because when sending them to cremation in the past, the wife will jump into the bonfire where the body was cremated. Since then, there has been a taboo that women should not be sent to funerals.

Of course, there is no scientific prove or evident of such folk and customs that spouses will? suicide during the burial day, and that sending a spouse's funeral will impoverish the living.

The more reliable reason should be to avoid extreme grief at the funeral, especially for woman/wife, which usually leads them to fainting and brings harm to their health.

Conclusion

So, back to this question, can a wife or husband send off their spouse in a funeral ceremony??

Yes, you can.

However, if you are extremely saddened by the death of your spouse, you should avoid seeing the coffin being buried or cremated at the funeral. Those scenes are always heart-wrenching, and painful!