Funeral - Control By The Decedent of The Details of The Funeral

Control By The Decedent of The Details of The Funeral

Some people choose to make their funeral arrangements in advance so that at the time of their death, their wishes are known to their family. However, the extent to which decisions regarding the dispositons of a decedent's remains (including funeral arrangements) can be controlled by the decedent while still alive vary from one jurisdiction to another. In the United States, there are states which allow one to make these decisions for oneself if desired, for example by appointing an agent to carry out one's wishes; in other states, the law allows the decedent's next-of-kin to make the final decisions about the funeral without taking the wishes of the decedent into account.

Of course, most family members of a deceased person would regard any wishes the deceased had made known as carrying considerable moral authority. Generally, some people may feel that it is a person's right to have their wishes regarding their own body and the manner in which they are memorialized respected after death, while others may feel that funerals are rather for the benefit of the living than of the dead.

The decedent may, in most U.S. jurisdictions, provide instructions as to his funeral by means of a last will and testament. These instructions can be given some legal effect if bequests are made contingent on the heirs carrying them out, with alternative gifts if they are not followed. This assumes, of course, that the decedent has enough of an estate to make the heirs pause before doing something that will invoke the alternate bequest. To be effective, the will or other instrument stating the decedent's funeral wishes must be easily available, and some notion of what it provides must be known to the decedent's survivors: aspects of the disposition of the remains of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran contrary to a number of his stated wishes, which were found in a safe that was opened after the funeral.