[Avodah] levayah minhagim

[SBA]

From: Arie Folger < >
Our Kehillah has been in uninterrupted operation for more than 200 years. 
Consequently, our cemetery traditions are old, as well. Men and women remain
separate at funerals, with women staying further away from the grave while
the men fill it. Then, once the men retreat, after the shurah, which is only
for men by men, women are free to come to the grave.

Is that, which you describe as the American custom of yore perhaps not the
way it was done way back, after all, but rather the compromise that came
about when Orthodoxy was still insecure? (This is a sociological argument
and not a halakhic one)
>>

That is exactly as we do it here. Obviously this was the Minhag in many
parts of Europe.

SBA