The Charlotte Democrat

Weddings and Funerals.

It is the duty as well as the privilege of the public journalists to advance the general good by commending what is commendable, and by censuring what is censurable. In this age, more than in any other of the world's history, newspapers are the moulders of public sentiment. A large multitude of the human family have no other guide than their family newspaper. This being the condition of things, we desire to pen a few sentences about modern weddings and funerals. In modern parlance, a wedding is a marriage party, and a funeral is a burial party. The guests who attend the former are all expected to laugh and make merry, and the attendance on the latter, are all expected to make long faces and be sad. Let all be glad and rejoice who have just grounds for rejoicing; and let all be sorry and sad who have cause to grieve, provided the joy of the former and the sorrow of the latter are kept within proper bounds.

There is this difference between a marriage party and a funeral party. To the former, only invited guests are expected to attend. Any one may attend the latter that feels disposed to do so. With this conventional arrangement we have no particular objection.

What we object to is the excesses which are practiced both at a funeral and a wedding. There will be burials and marriages in the world as long as civilization exists. All the human family, by an unalterable fiat, must die, and civilization, as well as religion, demands that the bodies of the dead be in some decent way removed out of the sight of the living. There will, whilst the world lasts, be marriages; for both good morals and the interest of civilization make it binding upon most men and women to marry.

Marrying, however, is one thing, and a marriage party is another. So also, burying a dead man is one thing and the pomp and display of a funeral is another thing. Usually, a marriage is a cause of joy; but still it is a very solemn thing to marry. Too frequently it is the beginning of sorrows innumerable. It makes an epoch in any man's life, and not as seldom as might be expected, an epoch of sorrow and shame. A morbid state of society demands that a marriage be attended with an expensive and lordly entertainment. All the kin. and many of the neighbors, must be invited to enjoy the feast. All that is, if not foolish, at least very useless. It entails upon the families, to which the bridegroom and bride belong, a heavy expense, and really profits no one anything. Not only is the entertainment a useless expense, but the dress of the bridegroom and bride is often nothing but a useless extravagance. It often occurs that a young couple start in the world with nothing but a fine and gaudy wardrobe. It would be far better for young people, when they determine, to marry, simply to marry and save the money usually invested in cakes and candy. and invest it in real necessities of life. The same is true respecting funerals. There is no sort of use or propriety in surviving relatives going to great expense in the burial of their dead. Much of the parade that is made over the dead is as empty and as transparently affected as air. It is right and becoming that the dead be decently buried: but it is uncalled for and a useless extravagance to put a royal robe on a body to be laid away in the ground to rot. Living bodies are clothed for the purpose of making them both comfortable and decent, but the only object in putting clothes on a dead body is to make it decent. Funeral expenses often are really burdensome. The rich think, or seem to think, that they show their affection for their dead by placing their lifeless corpses in costly caskets. This is all nonsense. Not unfrequently is the glaring inconsistency demonstrated by the bitter animosities which spring up in a few days about the estate of the deceased. The poor try to ape this thing in the rich, and bestow more upon the dead than they are able to bestow upon the living. Whilst living, man needs little here below; and when dead he needs far less than when living.