Why is the butterfly a symbol of mourning?

For three reasons. Ancient and mythological: in Greek, psyché means both "butterfly" and "soul"; in ancient iconography the soul is often depicted as a winged butterfly freeing itself from the body. Biological and metaphorical: the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly - the death of the caterpillar, the stillness of the chrysalis, new life as a butterfly - is read as a natural metaphor for resurrection. Visual and consoling: the butterfly is a light, beautiful, wonderfully free creature - the counter-image to the heaviness of death. This combination makes it the ideal secular, modern symbol of mourning.

Was the butterfly a mourning symbol in the nineteenth century too?

Only marginally. The Victorian mourning canon (see The Victorian Era (1837–1901)) was dominated by cross, anchor, heart, weeping willow, hourglass and skull. The butterfly does occur - as a detail on mourning brooches, for instance, or engraved inside a mourning ring - but it is not at the centre of mourning iconography. Only in the second half of the twentieth century, with the decline of explicitly Christian mourning symbolism and the need of secular, spiritually minded mourners for a non-religious symbol, does it gain importance on a large scale.

In which memorial contexts is the butterfly especially popular?

Three contexts dominate. Mourning for children - for deceased children the butterfly is chosen as a consoling, weightless symbol, often in colourful variants (monarch, swallowtail). Young adults - memorial pendants and memorial tattoos for deceased siblings or friends often carry a butterfly, sometimes with initials or a date of death. Secular, spiritual mourning - families who do not choose a church funeral but still want a symbol for "the soul lives on" frequently reach for the butterfly. In North American memorial contexts (the United States, Canada) the butterfly is today one of the most frequent symbols of remembrance.

Butterfly

The butterfly is the most important modern secular symbol of mourning - an ancient mythological metaphor for the soul (Greek psyché means both "butterfly" and "soul") that was marginal in the nineteenth century and has, since the late twentieth, become the dominant alternative symbol of remembrance alongside cross and heart.

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