Men Jailed for Selling Female Corpses for “Ghost Marriages”

Men Jailed for Selling Female Corpses for “Ghost Marriages”
Mar 06, 2013 By eChinacities.com

On March 2, the Xi’an Evening News reported that the Yanchuan county court based in Shaanxi Province’s Yan’an had sentenced four men to more than two years in prison for stealing 10 female corpses, and selling them to families wishing to give recently deceased bachelors “ghost marriages.” The four men, surnamed Pang, Bai, He, and Zhang, reportedly cleaned up the corpses, counterfeited their medical records, and sold them on the black market for around 25,000 USD.

The ancient ritual of “ghost marriages” stems back hundreds of years, and features the custom of burying recently deceased bachelors with newly deceased wives so they won’t get lonely in the afterlife. Despite the tradition being clamped down on after Mao assumed power in 1949, the practice is still carried out in rural parts of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei, and Guangdong.

Source: Guardian

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Keywords: China ghost marriages ghost marriages

3 Comments

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MarieCao

Hahah That is right and still happening in Hebei province, i am not sure about the big cities like shijiazhuang but it happened a lot of times in the countryside as i know... it also happened to my grandgrand...grandfather.

Mar 11, 2013 21:54 Report Abuse

LARedneck

Hmmm... 10 X $25,000? Get me a shovel. I'm in the wrong business!

Mar 09, 2013 11:46 Report Abuse

Max_Plachynta

OMG, wo cao!

Mar 09, 2013 07:19 Report Abuse