Social benefits of funerals - test 3

Question 1

1. Funerals allow community- wide support for the mourners.
2. Funerals provide social interaction through meaningful, structured activities where the mourner is thrust into a newly defined social role.
3. Funeral rituals assist the bereaved individual in initiating the process of social reintegration
4. Funerals assist the community in grieving the loss of one of its members.
5. Funerals validate the continuity of life when, following the death and final commitment, society lives on and continues to move forward.
6. Funerals are a reminder to society that every individual will die someday, and participation in funerary rituals repeatedly confirms one’s future mortality.
7. Funerals serve as a channel through which the community communicates its belief system regarding life and death.

Answer 1

Social benefits of funerals

Question 2

• Community displays empathy for the mourners, thereby strengthening social support.
• Implies a sense of shared loss
• Willingness to help survivors through this difficult time is communicated.

Answer 2

1. Funerals allow community-wide support for the mourners.

Question 3

• Redirect the mourner from dwelling on inner pain to focusing attention outside the self.
• Since there are no guidelines for how a mourner should behave, the funeral can provide some structure.

Answer 3

2. Funerals provide social interaction through meaningful, structured activities where the mourner is thrust into a newly defined social role.

Question 4

• through attendance to the funeral, the community opens its arms to offer social support for the griever and extend concern for the individual’s well being.
• new identity emerges for the greiver
• new relationship is established between the griever and the community in which the griever assumes a new social position.
• validation of this emerging identity begins during the funeral.

Answer 4

3. Funeral rituals assist the bereaved individual in initiating the process of social reintegration.

Question 5

• helps the larger community adapt to the imprint that death leaves on a society.
• community must deal with it’s grief.

Answer 5

4. Funerals assist the community in grieving the loss of one of its members.

Question 6

The funeral, while it honors the dead, is a testimony to the living.

i.e.- Famous people die, people get sad, they move on and continue life.

Answer 6

5. Funerals validate the continuity of life when, following the death and final commitment, society lives on and continues to move forward.

Question 7

In the meantime, each member of society becomes a vehicle of an anticipatory grief, the accumulation of which impacts the community through participation in the funeral rites of its members (Rando).

Answer 7

6. Funerals are a reminder to society that every individual will die someday, and participation in funerary rituals repeatedly confirms one’s future mortality.

Question 8

The rites of passage provide an occasion for society to demonstrate its values and underlying beliefs.

Answer 8

7. Funerals serve as a channel through which the community communicates its belief system regarding life and death.