The corpse brides of rural China:

A friend of  mine sent me a link to an article he read on ghost brides as a suggestion for my next post.

I've written before about slightly similar story "Til death do us part" which you can check out too.

In a video from the Telegraph online, a man stands by the tomb of his mother and father.

He is understandably upset, as his parents resting place has recently been robbed, and now the body of his father stands alone. His mother’s corpse has been stolen and sold on the black market to be used in a ghost wedding (冥婚).

 This rural ritual dates back almost 3000 years in some parts of China and is the act of burying a dead bachelor with a dead bride and is considered lucky. Although the practice of ghost brides was made illegal under communist rule, it has recently been revived, and now days these departed brides are in demand and can sell for as much as $13,000 on the black market.

 Younger ghost brides, and more recently buried bodies fetch a higher price.

Many use a model of a female figure made of clay or dough to bury with dead single men, but superstitious older generations believe that only a real corpse bride can ward off haunting and that bad luck will curse their families if they don’t supply.

The black market price of a ghost bride has also inspired some men to murder women in order to sell them as high price corpse brides. 

In 2007 one man strangled several women and sold their bodies. When questioned about his actions he simply stated: "Killing people and selling their bodies is less work than stealing them from graves."

More recently in 2012, a family sold their deceased daughter off as a ghost bride to another family with a bachelor son. However the body was quickly stolen after the ceremony and sold again. 

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