LA MORT DANS LA VILLE QUAND LES HOMMES REMPLACENT LES FEMMES
LA MORT DANS LA VILLE QUAND LES HOMMES REMPLACENT LES FEMMES

Summary/Abstract: Death seems to have always been a women’s affair in the Romanian villages. Men were only assistants those who acted were the women. They are implied in organizing both the funerals and the postfuneral rites (alms, taking care of the tombs, etc.). The Romanian cities knew the same order and separation, until a few years ago. There were, obviously, more men in the funeral industry, such as grave diggers or sextons, not to mention the priests (without whom no funeral could be performed, both in the villages and the cities), but their activities were secondary to those of women’s and, somehow, subordinated to them. However, in the last two decades, the feminine space of the death seems to be invaded by the male factor, who tends to annihilate it. If we count only the embalmers, most of them being men, and the morticians, we notice that the typical burial ceremony is more and more performed by and with the support of men. This translation reminds us, obviously, the other important translation from the female to the male, which was done in the case of the childbirth. The field data suggest that, in this moment, the changes are operating in the burial rites, which, due to the male influence, tend to lose their sacred component and to become more a ceremony than a sacred rite. For this reason, this paper tries to analyze the tension between the male and the female factors and to understand how the ritual is to evolve from now on in this respect.

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