UK Business Offers "Fake Mourners" For Funerals.

[Mitchell]

Maybe it's not my business.. but.. being in that I've lost a parent that I loved dearly in the past year.. it irked me.

I just read an article about a business in the UK that supposedly hires "Fake Mourners" for funerals, when the family of the deceased is concerned about not having enough "grieving people " to attend the funeral.

While I understand that life is free will, it would seem to me that this is.. opportunistic, and exploitation.

The funerals of my maternal grandparents, and my mom, were by no means "big" However, they were attended by people, family and friends, who truly felt sorrow at loss of the person who passed away, as well as for the family. All of my great aunts and uncles attended my grandparents funerals, and in the case of my mom's funeral, as I've stated before, my friend Adam, who I found on Facebook after 20 years, and his family, attended, which I will always remember. Even in the case of my dad attending my mom's funeral, with as bitter as their divorce was, he was still married to her for 23 years, he wanted to support me, and my aunt saw that he seemed upset. I think my mom, and my grandparents, would have all turned over in their graves if I had hired "fake mourners" for their funerals.

Thoughts on this? For some reason, this seems, over the top.

 

[C.A.B.]

No, no, Mitch. Professional Mourners for hire date back to before Egyptian times. History is rife with the venerable occupation. It was very common in the middle ages for families of means to hire professional mourners to wail and weep for the dead... a sign of affluence and/or power. Not too far removed from large, ungainly tombs and crypts. In those cases it was about prestige... not necessarily affection. As well, those who had no family or friends often pre-paid for themselves to be mourned, or it was gifted by a sympathetic bystander. Some cultures believed that anyone and everyone who mourned, hired or no, helped to speed the soul along to the next world.

 

[Mitchell]

Okay, I see where you're coming from C.A.B., and I do remember in that same article seeing about Far East cultures doing this. It probably is just a matter of to each their own.

 

[Bugman]

C.A.B. beat me to the punch, but yes. There is nothing new here. The practice was common in Roman culture for example.

 

[Mitchell]

Okay, I honestly didnt know this. Thanks guys. Didnt mean to cause a stir.