“Ghost marriage (minghun) is a 3,000 year-old custom practiced especially in northern China. Huang Jichun, a scholar at Shanghai University who studies Chinese folk traditions, says the majority of rural families in the north, whose relatives die unbetrothed , seek “ghost spouses” for the departed. According to custom, the bodies are buried together in a ceremony that is a cross between a wedding and a funeral. Their ghosts, it is believed, will then no longer be lonely, and the family’s fortunes will be restored.
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Trade in female corpses is flourishing in these poor rural areas. Bodies are typically procured through brokers, with the typical quoted price of a fresh corpse rising at least 25% in the past five years to 50,000 yuan.”
