Five people have been arrested in China for digging up the corpse of a young woman to be a “ghost bride” for a man killed in a car crash.
The suspects included a grieving father who allegedly paid his four accomplices around £2,700 pounds to find a female to be his son’s companion in the afterlife. The men were caught after unearthing the remains of a teenage girl who had poisoned herself after failing her university entrance exams last year, a newspaper in Xianyang in China’s Shaanxi province reported.
In rural China, superstitious villagers have for centuries sought out the bodies of recently deceased woman to be ghost brides for young men who die single. Marriage ceremonies are conducted for the two corpses, and the bride is placed in the same grave as her husband.
Under Chairman Mao’s rule, officials made strenuous efforts to stamp out the ghoulish practice but it has since resurfaced in some rural areas. Last year, a gang in southern China was arrested for strangling young women to sell as ghost brides when the supply of female corpses in their area ran short.
That. Is. Utterly. Messed Up.
Perhaps we could suggest some candidates?
What a fascinating superstition about the afterlife! You think you’ve heard them all, and then this comes along.
You know, I\’m all for alternative, even bizarre, lifestyle choices but even I draw the line at this. Aside from the morbidity and sheer oddness of it, what about logistical concerns such as the potential health concerns of dealing with a decomposing corpse?
The guy was dead. I\’m pretty sure his body wasn\’t going to care about getting married. In the unlikely event that there *is* an afterlife, surely he can worry about it there?
*shakes head* I don\’t know. Truth is stranger than fiction…
Sometimes people are very, very strange…
OMG! How f’kd up can you get?
Believe and money…see, i wouldn´t be surprised @all if this were to be true….as is the slayering of homeless children in poor countries to then sell their organics for donor purposes, to the expensive west….herher bravo.
oooh, thats a little creepy!
ooh that is so wrong in so many ways!
Hm, ghost bride .. wasn’t there one in the movie Derren was in a while ago? Not that that really links up thos this topic …
Good that the two never knew … they probably would have hated eachother … not a match at all.
They do this already with alive people so .. I prefer the dead people then .. for matchmaking ..
Too bad as well that they did not get to consumate their marriage .. but hey .. the whole divorce procedures that would need to be processed then as well by the matchmakers … too much trouble ..
Man – if Chairman Mao can’t get rid of it, there is no chance for the rest of us. He was really dedicated to the whole ‘stamping things out and s**t” philosophy.
It must be a cultural thing but Chinese people I know have very odd ideas about ghosts and graves. This being a case in point and also being completly fracked-up.