What is a "conventional" funeral?
The conventional funeral, sometimes called a traditional or "full service" funeral, includes the viewing by family and friends of an embalmed and casketed body in a funeral home or place of worship, followed by a funeral ceremony, and concluding with burial in a cemetery. It was the standard American funeral for over 100 years. What does a conventional funeral usually include?
What does a conventional funeral usually not include?
There are many reasons why you might choose a conventional funeral:
The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) calculates median funeral costs by totaling prices for the items listed in the chart below. IMPORTANT NOTE: The total does not take into account cemetery costs (a grave plot, opening and closing the grave), grave marker, or items such as flowers and obituaries. According to the NFDA, the national median cost of a funeral for 2017 was $7,360. If a vault is included, almost always required by a cemetery, the median cost is $8,508. Possible additional charges: church rental, honorarium for clergy, fees for musicians, cost of a luncheon or other refreshments following burial. You better shop around The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) strongly recommends that funeral consumers do comparison shopping before they buy. It's often too late to do this once someone has died, and time constraints and other factors make shopping for a funeral stressful. Every funeral home is required under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Funeral Rule to make a General Price List (GPL) available to anyone who stops by, no questions asked. The GPL is an itemized list of all the services the funeral home provides – something like a menu. Checking out conventional funeral goods All funeral homes are also required by the FTC to maintain a Casket Price List (CPL) and an Outer Burial Container (OBC) Price List, otherwise known as a vault. Funeral homes maintain a room where casket models - and examples of various casket materials and styles - are on display along with burial vault options and other funeral goods. For many people, the first time they visit a funeral home display room is when a loved one has died, and they've come to make arrangements, often under duress. It’s your funeral It will be your funeral, and that means it's your right, your choice, your decision. As you think it over, you may want to know more about two central features of the conventional funeral: Embalming and Caskets. (See right column.) |
EMBALMING: THE HEART OF THE MATTER
The most prominent feature of the conventional funeral is embalming. The funeral industry promotes embalming as the most fitting, loving and respectful way to prepare the body for burial. Embalming allows the family and members of the public to view the body as if it's asleep in a half-opened casket. Viewing the embalmed body in this way, the funeral industry asserts, provides loved ones with a beautiful memory of the deceased, and helps the grieving process. What is embalming? Almost never required by law, embalming is a process that involves puncturing internal organs, draining the body, and injecting a formaldehyde-based fluid to provide for temporary preservation of the body and a life-like appearance to skin, mouth and eyes. How did the practice of embalming begin? Embalming was never a ritual practice of any of the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In fact, Jews and Muslims look upon embalming as an invasive procedure which dishonors the body and largely forbid it. Modern American funeral practices began during the Civil War when families demanded the return of their fallen loved ones. Embalming, previously used to preserve cadavers for scientific research, was adopted to slow the decomposition of the war dead long enough to transport them over hundreds of railway miles. Over the past 150 years this wartime practice became routine death care practice. Embalming, and later, the widespread use of refrigeration, allowed the body to be kept above ground for a longer period of time, extending over a few days what would have previously taken place within 24-48 hours. "Embalming restores a lifelike appearance to the deceased. Refrigeration does not, which may only matter if you expect the dead to resemble the living." - Mark Harris, GRAVE MATTERS: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial (2007) CASKETS The casket is usually the single most expensive item of a conventional funeral. The majority of caskets sold in the U.S. today are made of steel. In 1950, half the caskets sold were cloth-covered, but after the Korean War sheet metal became more readily available and metal casket production exploded. By the 1970s, two-thirds of the caskets sold in the U.S. were metal. Choosing a casket In making conventional funeral arrangements, the selection of a casket can be emotional. Metal or wood. If metal, what gauge? If wood, what kind? What would Mom want? Does that color fit Dad's personality? What impression will the casket make on those who come to view Grandma? What can we afford? But for practical purposes, the casket serves one basic function: as a container in which to display, transport, and bury a dead human body. Casket selling points A major casket selling point is the degree to which it will protect the body from the elements -- anything that can seep, creep, or crawl into the casket after burial. (The same goes for burial vault features.) A casket and vault may delay decomposition, but will not prevent it indefinitely. Many funeral consumers are willing to pay a lot for these added protective features because they believe such protection better honors and respects the dead. Our forebears buried their beloved dead in a pine box or directly in the ground without a protective vault. Underground protection of a dead human body was not a value before the rise of the modern funeral industry. It's hard to think of another consumer purchase that costs several thousand dollars, is viewed for three to six hours, and then buried underground, never to be seen again. (One hopes.) National Median Cost of an Adult Funeral with Viewing and Burial: 2017 vs 2014 |