Hi all my dear friends,
The other day, I came across a Chinese phrase online: pei yin hun(配阴婚), which
took me quite a while to make out what it literally meant---to arrange a marriage for the dead! My goodness! What the hell is that? Marriage after death? Why does the deceased want a husband or wife who has passed away as well? It sounds rather like a ghost wedlock in the underground (no offence to the dead)! Does it
happen only in China or anywhere else? Is it simply superstition or another justified way of commemoration for the loved who died at a very early age? Is it moral or totally some insane act?
Later, I went to Goggle the search engine for some information of this strange phenomenon and found a lot of horrible stories about marriage of the dead. Among
them, to me the most striking one was about a murder of a thirteen year old girl
who after being killed was "forced to marry" a fourteen year old boy who had died in a car accident not long before the "marriage". And the roles of a "marriage" arranger and the killer was both played by the dead boy's mother.
There are even other bizarre news about two younger brothers stealing a dead female body away from a new tomb as a bride for their dead elder brother the "bridegroom" and a fifty-eight year old man arranging a wedding for his younger brother who died more than thirty years ago by advertising and posting, et cetera.
As a Chinese myself, I had never heard of such weird custom in China. I once burnt spirit money for my passed-away grandpa and saw people making to-be burnt paper lumousine for a luxury underground life for the dead, but arranging a marriage through murdering living people and stealing dead people's bodies I could not
even imagine that!
It seems we Chinese sometimes are so concerned and loving our dead relatives and
friends and usually tend to forget the well-being of the people alive. But I think it would be better if both of the dead man and woman died a normal death, had always been in love before death and would like to be wedded with their free will after death. Like in the movies or romantic stories, people can't get married when living and choose to live together by being buried in one tomb with a death marriage bond. It is even more romantic than a living marriage in a sense because living people have a high possibility of getting divorced.:) However, for the dead, they would always live happily ever after!:)
I can tell how crazy people get when lost their loved ones, especially at a very
tender age. You all have more or less learned about the tsunami disaster in South-east Asia in which nearly 160,000 people died with millions under medication
and in starvation. Almost one third of the dead were children. Their parents will never see them grow up and get married. Maybe an after death marriage would be
a good idea to ease the heart pains of the mothers and fathers if the wedding could take place by willingness. It is going to be a holy ritual, I guess, for the union of the souls of the dead.
When I die, I wish I could die married for my soul will be happy to know that she is still living in memories of happiness, with our children and will be protecting her from any harms or danger and even hopefully helping her marry a better
husband and live happily ever after....:)
What do you think?
CharlietheAprilFool
