The gemara advises that one should not stand in front of the women when they return from a funeral. While our custom of making shuros is something different than what the gemara is discussing here, I have a question about women mourners, and our practice after a funeral, while still at the cemetery. After the internment, the most common custom is that men make shuros and the male mourners walk through the rows to receive 'nechama'. The women mourners do not walk through these 2 rows of men. It also seems that most gaba'im at funerals do not announce that the women should make shuros and the women mourners should walk through them. Why is this? Shouldn't the women receive 'nechama' too?
as always, best regards,
Jeff Ram
Yes, women should receive Nechamah, and they do, but in a different form. The main time for comforting women mourners is in the home, not at the cemetary, primarily because of Tzeni'us.
You raised another important point, that today, although a lot of the practices of mourning resemble what they used to do, most of the practices are customs and not Halachos.