Etiquette Made Easy

by Edward Summers Squier

It should be noted that the white ruche on the bonnet is the one distinctive feature of the first mourning that designates the wearer as a widow. A woman may wear exactly the same costume, with the exception of this white ruche on the bonnet, in the mourning for a parent, a child, a brother or a sister.

The period for wearing mourning in such case, and the changes in it, may follow the details given above for widows.

Mourning for a parent-in-law is black, with the crêpe omitted. This is worn for only a month, and is followed by any preferred combinations of black and white, relieved by lilac, for a fortnight or a little longer.

The mourning for close relatives worn by a young unmarried woman does not include the bonnet and veil. Instead, a hat trimmed with crêpe is worn, and a black net veil over the face is trimmed with crêpe. After six months or a year, the crêpe is omitted from hat and veil, and also from the gown. Black and white and lilac are then deemed suitable. Usually, however, the older unmarried women wear the veil and bonnet of the first mourning, as do widows, but with the white ruche omitted.

Mourning is not usually adopted when the death is of relatives-in-law or of a grandparent.

Three months is ordinarily sufficient for mourning in the case of an uncle or aunt, and it does not include crêpe. Ornaments may be worn, though preferably of a very quiet sort.

In general, it is well to bear in mind that mourning should not be worn except for the members of one’s immediate family. Of course, the particular circumstances in each case must be a determining factor. For example, while mourning is not customarily worn for a cousin, yet a girl who had made a home with such a relative might appropriately wear mourning as for her own mother.

Crêpe is not deemed suitable for girls not yet old enough for a formal entrance into society, and children should be spared the lugubrious trappings of woe in every case. But a girl about sixteen years of age, on the death of a member of the family, appropriately wears a black dress, relieved only by touches of white, and a black hat, with dull black ribbons. She should leave off jewelry, but she should not carry a handkerchief with black border.

The mourning for a widower is often divided into two periods. During the first, black is worn throughout in the costume, with white linen. The hat-band is of crêpe. The present tendency is to make this band much narrower than it was of yore. It is left off altogether after a year, or perhaps eight months, as the second mourning begins. The second mourning permits the use of gray and white in the costume. A man’s mourning for a child, parent, brother or sister may continue for a full year, or it may be put off after six months according to his choice. The mourning includes a hat-band of crêpe. If a man wishes to wear mourning for a more distant relative, he may use the black and white and gray of the widower’s second period, but men ordinarily do not assume mourning for any except closest relations.

A mourning band on the sleeve is sometimes worn by men, but it is impossible to describe its significance from the standpoint of propriety, since it is worn equally for those most closely related and for those most distantly, without distinction, and since it is a custom derived originally from England, where it serves as a cheap method of providing mourning liveries for servants.