Much ado about two nothings: Two ghosts get married in China, but some people are unhappy

A grieving father in China, Sun, alleges that the adoptive parents of his 16-year-old daughter, Xiaodan, sold her as a “ghost bride” after she died by suicide. Despite tracing a substantial bride price transfer, authorities find no legal basis for prosecution.

Sun, residing in Shandong province, revealed that Xiaodan took her own life in December, driven by prolonged emotional abuse from her adoptive parents. Sun and his wife had placed Xiaodan for adoption in 2006 due to financial constraints, occasionally visiting under the guise of distant relatives.

Accusing the adoptive parents of posthumously marrying Xiaodan to a deceased young man named Zhang, Sun claims they received a 66,000-yuan (US$9,300) bride price from Zhang’s parents. This practice, known as ghost marriages, has a 3,000-year history in China, prevalent in certain less-developed rural areas.

Ghost marriages stem from the belief that individuals who die unmarried face a lack of blessings in the afterlife and should be united with other unmarried deceased individuals. The ritual involves exchanges of bride price and dowry, establishing a familial relationship between the “ghost couple.”

Critics decry ghost marriages as an affront to the deceased and modern civilization, often leading to crimes such as the theft of corpses or bone ashes for sale as a “bride” to a deceased individual.

Xiaodan was buried with Zhang to fulfill the ghost marriage ceremony, prompting Sun to seek legal action against the adoptive parents for domestic violence and corpse desecration. However, despite tracking the 66,000-yuan money transfer, authorities find no evidence of criminal activity, citing a lack of legal grounds for penalizing those involved in ghost marriages.

Yao Jianlong, director of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Law, asserts that arranging a ghost marriage is not a crime under Chinese law. Previous cases resulting in punishment involved violations such as theft and corpse damage rather than the act of arranging a ghost marriage itself.