Ghost Marriage: In some places in northern China, families will "match" a spouse for someone who died unmarried

Ghost marriage, also called yin marriage, means marrying off someone who has already died. In rural areas of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan and nearby provinces, when an elderly person passes away and their son is still unmarried, the elders can't let it go and will try to find him a "match."

One way is to find another family whose unmarried daughter has also recently died; the two families agree to bury the two together. Others use a paper effigy as a substitute. The methods differ, but the meaning is much the same: the child shouldn't be alone over there. In some places, they also invite a master to check the eight characters of birth, making sure the two people's birth dates align and don't clash. Betrothal gifts and dowries must all be prepared, and it's carried out just like a real wedding, except the couple is made of paper.

This custom is very old; similar things are mentioned in books from the Zhou Dynasty. There were also reports about it in newspapers during the Republic of China period. The elders' thinking is simple: the living can't let it go, and always want to do something more for their deceased child.

But the problem today is that some people have turned it into a business. In recent years there have been news reports of people specializing in stealing corpses and buying and selling human remains to "arrange ghost marriages" for others, and they got caught. Stealing corpses and insulting corpses are crimes, and the sentences are not light. Some families were cheated out of money, thinking they were accumulating merit for their child.

So if you hear someone online saying they can help you "match" one, they are definitely a scammer. If you truly want to commemorate a relative, burning some paper, erecting a stele, or saying a few words is enough; there's no need to spend a single penny to buy a person.

#Folklore #网络转载 #民间习俗