China grave robbers 'sold dead brides'
Four people have been jailed in China for digging up corpses to sell as brides for traditional "ghost marriages" - where dead single men are buried with a wife for the afterlife, it has been reported.
The group "stole female corpses and
after cleaning them, fabricated medical files for the deceased and sold
them for a high price" Photo: GETTY
Marriage is an important part of Chinese society and, while the practice is
increasingly rare, it is still kept up by some families whose young adult
sons pass away before having a chance to wed.
Normally it is agreed between the families of the dead, but the Xian Evening
News said on Saturday that the group "stole female corpses and after
cleaning them, fabricated medical files for the deceased and sold them for a
high price".
A court in the northern province of Shaanxi had in recent days sentenced the
four to terms between 28 and 32 months, it said, adding they "took
advantage" of the "bad tradition" of ghost marriages in parts of Shaanxi and
neighbouring Shanxi province.
The deceased couples are typically buried side by side after a wedding
ceremony of sorts.
Citing the court, the report said the gang made a total of 240,000 yuan
(£26,000) from the sales of 10 corpses.
Source: AFP
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China imprisons four men for 'ghost marriage' corpse bride trafficking
Yanchuan court jails men for digging up and selling bodies in afterlife custom of matching dead women to deceased bachelors
While these newlyweds
are alive and well, the ghost marriage is an ancient Chinese
superstition of matching dead women to deceased bachelors. Photograph:
@mr.jerry/Getty Images/Flickr RF
A county court in central China
has sentenced four men to prison for digging up and selling corpses on
the black market to enable "ghost marriages", a millennia-old custom of
burying deceased bachelors alongside newly deceased wives so that they
will not grow lonely in the afterlife.
On Saturday, the Xi'an Evening News reported that the Yanchuan county court in Yan'an City, Shanxi province, sentenced each of the men to more than two years in prison for stealing 10 female corpses, cleaning them up and counterfeiting their medical records to boost their prices, and selling them on the black market for a total of £25,000.
Ritual ghost marriages, which may date back to the 17th century BC, are increasingly rare in contemporary China – Mao Zedong tried to eliminate them when he assumed power in 1949 – but they are still practised in rural parts of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and Guangdong provinces. Families often employ a matchmaker to help find a suitable spouse for their deceased loved ones.
The four men, with surnames Pang, Bai, He and Zhang, exhumed the corpses in the winter of 2011 from a smattering of arid, coal-rich counties in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces.
The state-run Global Times newspaper reported in 2011 that an influx of coal money to parts of northern Shaanxi province bolstered the area's underground corpse trade, with a newly wealthy but supersitious demographic suddenly being able to afford high prices for desirable postmortem mates. Some are known to purchase their corpse brides straight from hospitals, where they cut deals with grieving families.
This is not the first time that ghost marriage intermediaries have fallen on the wrong side of the law. One woman died over the lunar new year in February 2012 and was sold by her family to the family of a recently deceased young man for about £3,700; soon afterwards, police caught a graverobber selling her twice-exhumed body to another family for slightly less.
In 2009, a grieving father in Xianyang City, also in Shaanxi province, paid a team of graverobbers £2,700 to find a suitable bride for his son, who had recently died in a car crash. They were arrested for exhuming the remains of a teenage girl who had killed herself not long after failing her college entrance exams.
According to the Global Times, less affluent families who still desire ghost marriages may use a non-human proxy for the corpse bride, such as a silver statuette or a doughy human-shaped biscuit with black beans for eyes. Some may buy an old, rotten corpse at a discounted price, dress it in clothing and reinforce its skeleton with steel wire.
The tradition has its own set of customs and rituals, including postmortem marriages with sumptuous feasts and dowries, according to the report.
On Saturday, the Xi'an Evening News reported that the Yanchuan county court in Yan'an City, Shanxi province, sentenced each of the men to more than two years in prison for stealing 10 female corpses, cleaning them up and counterfeiting their medical records to boost their prices, and selling them on the black market for a total of £25,000.
Ritual ghost marriages, which may date back to the 17th century BC, are increasingly rare in contemporary China – Mao Zedong tried to eliminate them when he assumed power in 1949 – but they are still practised in rural parts of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and Guangdong provinces. Families often employ a matchmaker to help find a suitable spouse for their deceased loved ones.
The four men, with surnames Pang, Bai, He and Zhang, exhumed the corpses in the winter of 2011 from a smattering of arid, coal-rich counties in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces.
The state-run Global Times newspaper reported in 2011 that an influx of coal money to parts of northern Shaanxi province bolstered the area's underground corpse trade, with a newly wealthy but supersitious demographic suddenly being able to afford high prices for desirable postmortem mates. Some are known to purchase their corpse brides straight from hospitals, where they cut deals with grieving families.
This is not the first time that ghost marriage intermediaries have fallen on the wrong side of the law. One woman died over the lunar new year in February 2012 and was sold by her family to the family of a recently deceased young man for about £3,700; soon afterwards, police caught a graverobber selling her twice-exhumed body to another family for slightly less.
In 2009, a grieving father in Xianyang City, also in Shaanxi province, paid a team of graverobbers £2,700 to find a suitable bride for his son, who had recently died in a car crash. They were arrested for exhuming the remains of a teenage girl who had killed herself not long after failing her college entrance exams.
According to the Global Times, less affluent families who still desire ghost marriages may use a non-human proxy for the corpse bride, such as a silver statuette or a doughy human-shaped biscuit with black beans for eyes. Some may buy an old, rotten corpse at a discounted price, dress it in clothing and reinforce its skeleton with steel wire.
The tradition has its own set of customs and rituals, including postmortem marriages with sumptuous feasts and dowries, according to the report.
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