ost recognizable habit of mourning in the 19th century. The widows veil was completely opaque to observers, and as in the above quote, covers the body from head to foot. As such, it is reminiscent of the traditional Muslim hijab, which in its most extreme form covers the entire body with the exception of a lace patch covering the eyes (Boucher, 1987). The purpose of the hijab is to shield men from the distraction of womens beauty. The 19th-century female mourners veil served a similar, if less insidiously misogynistic purpose: to shield the world from the mourners pitiable sorrow. It hid the mourners true face in order to spare her the embarrasment of public tears, and to make it easier for her to encounter other people without being obliged to smile or put on a social face. The presence of the veil in female costumes for mourning as well as weddings suggests that the veil creates a sacred, contemplative space in which a woman may exist during a very emotional period of her life. It is also a substitute for male protection - the bride appears veiled in public until she has become the legal ward of her husband, and the widow appears veiled in public because she has ceased to have the immediate physical protection of a husband. This psycho-social aspect certainly was not explicit in the Victorian use of the veil in either ceremony, but the practice of covering the face in any circumstance has a profound psychological effect on both the subject and the observer.The color of the mourners robes, whether male or female, is similar in the Western hemisphere throughout the 19th century, as well as in preceding and following centuries. Black, the color of funerals, is associated in Western culture with death, decay, and the unknown. This is not universally true: in northern Africa the traditional funerary color is white, and in most of China it is yellow (Boucher, 1987). From a western perspective, these colors - white and yellow - se...
