I wonder if it's because embalming is a product you can sell someone with a large profit margin because the market price of body embalming is murky at best.

I did paid biz research on the funeral industry in 2010 on summer break from my mba for an Irish company looking to extend into the US focused on funeral for Irish people.

There was a huge amount of consolidation going on as mostly family funeral parlors were being bought up by a few scaled players.

There is a huge amount of money tied up in funerals. Looking at the generational switchover, with boomers presumedly wanting traditional burials, grave sites and granite headstones—-not yet at its peak.

I wonder if the funeral industry will tip around the same time some have suggested the housing market will.

Traditionally you'd get the body into the ground in three days max. Nowadays that's not happening unless (like some religions) you make it a point of principle. With bureaucracy and far-flung families it frequently takes weeks.

For viewings. If the viewing isn't done in the 24h post-death, the body has decayed noticibly: it's unsightly and smells bad.

(take with a grain of salt, my only source is 10 episodes of Six Feet Under)

I have to admit that I don't "get" the concept of the viewing (in most cases, apart from identification of course). My grandma died a few years back and the body was available for viewings. Unlike most of my family I didn't go.

My last memory of grandma was us all together as a family at my aunt's house on Christmas day, her sitting there in an armchair beaming at how proud she was of her family and giving out hugs and kisses to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She died a few weeks afterwards of heart failure.

It's one of my fondest memories and I'm sure she'd rather be remembered that way than as a cold, lifeless body on a stainless steel slab.

> I have to admit that I don't "get" the concept of the viewing (in most cases, apart from identification of course). My grandma died a few years back and the body was available for viewings. Unlike most of my family I didn't go.

> My last memory of grandma was us all together as a family at my aunt's house on Christmas day, her sitting there in an armchair beaming at how proud she was of her family and giving out hugs and kisses to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She died a few weeks afterwards of heart failure.

> It's one of my fondest memories and I'm sure she'd rather be remembered that way than as a cold, lifeless body on a stainless steel slab.

For some, the memories are not enough, and to touch the skin of a loved one one last time (even if there is no warmth behind it) before their body if forever removed from the world, is a special moment.

24 hours seems a little fast. I’ve encountered bodies that have sat for 2-3 days unnoticed (estimated) inside of their house, in the summer, and it’s not too terrible of a smell. If anything, you’d start to see bloating and discoloration, but not enough decay will happen within 24hours that would result in a closed casket viewing. Also, once they stick ‘em in the freezer at the morgue, you’re stalling that decay tremendously — at least long enough to make it to the funeral, which is sometimes up to a week later.

Also, to talk about the parents point on prime real estate, i’m not sure what current rates in other states for a plot but where i’m at, you’re looking at >$1,500/plot for one casket.

For the purpose of viewing, refrigeration prior to the event is preferable to embalming.

Surely it doesn’t take more than 24 hours to find someone to identify most dead bodies? They don’t need to be viewed after they’ve been identified.

> Surely it doesn’t take more than 24 hours to find someone to identify most dead bodies? They don’t need to be viewed after they’ve been identified.

Bodies don't need to be viewed just as a sunset does not need to be admired. But people choose to do both activities all the same.

> They don’t need to be viewed after they’ve been identified.

Says who? Do you have information about the grieving process being easier if you don't view?

> Do you have information about the grieving process being easier if you don't view?

I never claimed that - you've imagined that - so why would I have information on it?

Slow the decay for funerals.

Corpse viewing.