View source for Social:Chinese ghost marriage

{{infobox Chinese
| c  = 冥婚
| l  = "netherworld marriage"
| p  = mínghūn
| mi = {{IPAc-cmn|m|ing|2|.|h|un|1}}
| j  = ming<sup>4</sup>-fan<sup>1</sup>
| y  = mìhng-fān
| ci = {{IPAc-yue|m|ing|4|.|f|an|1}}
| tl = bîng-hun
| mc = meng xwon
}}
In Chinese tradition, a '''ghost marriage''' ({{zh|c=冥婚|p='''mínghūn'''|l=spirit marriage}}) is a marriage in which one or both parties are deceased.<ref name="noteStockard">Stockard, Janice E. ''Daughters of the Canton Delta''</ref>{{rp|99}} Other forms of ghost marriage are practiced worldwide, notably in France since 1959 (see [[Social:Posthumous marriage|posthumous marriage]]; compare [[Social:Levirate marriage|levirate marriage]] and [[Social:Ghost marriage in South Sudan|ghost marriage in South Sudan]], i.e. marriage to a living relative of the deceased). The origins of Chinese ghost marriage are largely unknown, but reports of it being practiced today can still be found.<ref>{{Cite web|url = http://www.ettoday.net/news/20151106/592314.htm|title=一個人的婚禮…女友過世男辦冥婚|date=6 November 2015|access-date=14 February 2016|website=東森新聞|publisher=東森新聞网}}</ref>

==Types==
Chinese ghost marriage was usually set up by the family of the deceased and performed for a number of reasons, including the marriage of an engaged couple before one member's death,<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955">Topley, Marjorie. "Ghost Marriages Among the Singapore Chinese"</ref>{{rp|29}} to integrate an unmarried daughter into a patrilineage,<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|82}} to ensure the family line is continued,<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}} or to maintain that no younger brother is married before an elder brother.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}}

===Previously engaged===
Upon the death of her fiancé, a bride could choose to go through with the wedding, in which the groom was represented by a white cockerel at the ceremony.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}} However, some women were hesitant since this form of ghost marriage required her to participate in the funeral ritual, mourning customs (including strict dress and conduct standards), take a vow of [[Philosophy:Sexual abstinence|celibacy]],<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}} and immediately take up residence with his family.<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|91}} A groom had the option of marrying his late fiancée, with no disadvantages, but there have been no records of such weddings.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}}

===Women and ghost marriage===

====Providing a deceased daughter with a patrilineage====
When it comes to death customs, an unmarried Chinese woman has no [[Social:Kinship|descendants]] to worship her or care for her as part of a lineage.<ref name="noteMartin1973">Martin, Emily Ahern. ''The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village''</ref>{{rp|127}} In every household, an altar is prominently displayed with the spirit tablets of the paternal ancestors and the images of the gods. A married woman's tablet is kept at the altar of her husband's family.<ref>Freedman, Maurice. ''Family and Kinship in Chinese Society'' p. 165.</ref> However, should a woman of eligible age pass away unmarried, her family is prohibited from placing her tablet on the altar of her natal home.<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|83}} Instead, she will be "given a temporary paper tablet, placed not on the domestic altar but in a corner near the door."<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|83}} Hence, the important duty of Chinese parents in marrying off their children<ref name="ikels">Ikels, Charlotte. "Parental Perspectives on the Significance of Marriage."</ref>{{rp|254}} becomes increasingly important for their daughters. Since women are only able to acquire membership in descent lines through marriage,<ref name="Wolf, Arthur P.">Wolf, Arthur P. ''Studies in Chinese Society''</ref>{{rp|148}} ghost marriage became a viable solution to ensure that unmarried, deceased daughters still had "affiliation to a male descent line"<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|82}} and could be appropriately cared for after death.

Another death custom concerning an unmarried daughter prohibited her from dying in her natal home. Instead, a temple or "Death House"<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|82}} for [[Social:Spinster|spinster]]s was built or families take their daughter to a shed, empty house, or outlying buildings to die.<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|82}}

====Living, unmarried daughters====
Not only did the Chinese customs concerning death greatly burden the family, but an unmarried daughter became a source of great embarrassment and concern. In Charlotte Ikels "Parental Perspectives on the Significance of Marriage" she reports, "Traditionally, girls who did not marry were regarded as a threat to the entire family and were not allowed to continue living at home. Even in contemporary Hong Kong, I was told that unmarried women are assumed to have psychological problems. Presumably no normal person would remain unmarried voluntarily."<ref name="ikels"/>{{rp|254}} For girls who choose to remain unmarried, "bride-initiated spirit marriage" (or a ghost marriage initiated by a living bride) was a successful "marriage-resistance practice"<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|92}} that allowed them to remain single while still being integrated into a lineage. However, it did come with some negative connotations, being called a "fake spirit-marriage" or referred to as "marrying a spirit tablet", and a way to avoid marriage.<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|92–93}}

===Continuing the family line===
If a son died before marriage, his parents arranged a ghost marriage to provide him with [[Biology:Offspring|progeny]] to continue the lineage and give him his own descendants.<ref name="noteBall">Ball, J. Dyer. ''Things Chinese: or Notes Connected with China'' pp. 419-420. As quoted by Baker, Hugh D. R. ''Chinese Family and Kinship'' pp. 42-43.</ref> "A man in China does not marry so much for his own benefit as for that of the family: to continue the family name; to provide descendants to keep up the ancestral worship; and to give a daughter-in-law to his mother to wait on her and be, in general, a daughter to her."<ref name="noteBall"/> Occasionally, a live woman is taken as a wife for a dead man, but this is rare.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}} The ceremony itself took on characteristics of both a marriage and a funeral, with the spirit of the deceased bride being "led" by a medium or priest, while her body is transferred from her grave to be laid next to her husband.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}}

If the family was "suitably rich to tempt a [living] girl,"<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}} the ghost marriage might profit them with the asset of having a daughter-in-law. Since a daughter is not considered "a potential contributor to the lineage into which she is born," but rather "it is expected that she will give the children she bears and her adult labor to the family of her husband,"<ref name="noteMartin1973"/>{{rp|127}} the wife of a deceased son would benefit her husband's family by becoming a caregiver in their home.<ref name="ikels"/>{{rp|255}}

Once the deceased son had a wife, the family could adopt an heir, or a "grandson",<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}} to continue on the family line. The purpose of the daughter-in-law was not to produce offspring, as she was to live a chaste life, but she became the "social instrument" to enable the family to adopt.<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|100}} The family preferred to adopt patrilineally related male kin,<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|95}} usually through a brother assigning one of his own sons to the lineage of the deceased.<ref name="noteWolfHuang">Wolf, Arthur P. and Huang, Chieh-Shan. ''Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845-1945'' p. 112.</ref> The adoption was carried out by writing up a contract, which was then placed under the dead man's tablet.<ref name="noteWolfHuang"/> As an adopted son, his duties were to make ancestral offerings on his birth and death dates, and he was additionally "entitled to inherit his foster father's share of the family estate."<ref name="noteWolfHuang"/>

===Requests from the afterworld===
Ghost marriages are often set up by request of the spirit of the deceased, who, upon "finding itself without a spouse in the other world,"<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}} causes misfortune for its natal family, the family of its betrothed,<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1955"/>{{rp|29}} or for the family of the deceased's married sisters.<ref name="noteJordan">Jordan, David K. ''Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors.''</ref>{{rp|141}} "This usually takes the form of sickness by one or more family members. When the sickness is not cured by ordinary means, the family turns to divination and learns of the plight of the ghost through a séance."<ref name="noteJordan"/>{{rp|141}}

More benignly, a spirit may appear to a family member in a dream and request a spouse. Marjorie Topley, in "Ghost Marriages Among the Singapore Chinese: A Further Note," relates the story of one 14-year-old Cantonese boy who died. A month later he appeared to his mother in a dream saying that he wished to marry a girl who had recently died in Ipoh, Perak. The son did not reveal her name; his mother used a Cantonese spirit medium and "through her the boy gave the name of the girl together with her place of birth and age, and details of her horoscope which were subsequently found to be compatible with his."<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956">Topley, Marjorie. "Ghost Marriages Among the Singapore Chinese: A Further Note."</ref>{{rp|71}}

===Other instances of ghost marriage===
Because Chinese custom dictates that younger brothers should not marry before their elder brothers, a ghost marriage for an older, deceased brother may be arranged just before a younger brother's wedding to avoid "incurring the disfavour of his brother's ghost."<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|29}}
Additionally, in the days of immigration, ghost marriages were used to "cement a bond of friendship between two families."<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|30}} However, there have been no recent cases reported.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|30}}

==Arrangement==
If a family wishes to arrange a ghost marriage, they may consult with a [[Social:Matchmaking|matchmaker]] of sorts: In a Cantonese area of Singapore "there is in fact a ghost marriage broker's sign hung up in a doorway of a Taoist priest's home. The broker announces that he is willing to undertake the search for a family which has a suitable deceased member with a favourable horoscope."<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|29}}

Others do not use the aid of any priest or diviner and believe that the groom the ghost-bride has chosen "[will] somehow identify himself."<ref name="noteMartin1973"/>{{rp|236}} Typically, the family lays a red envelope (usually used for gifts of money) as bait in the middle of the road. They then take to hiding, and when the envelope is picked up by a passer-by, they come out and announce his status of being the chosen bridegroom.<ref name="noteJordan"/>{{rp|140}}

===Dowries and bridewealth===
The exchange of [[Social:Bride price|bridewealth]] and dowries between the two families involved in a ghost marriage is quite "variable," and families may exchange both, one or the other, or even just red money packets.<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|98}} There is no standard amount exchanged, but several of Janice Stockard's informants reported that the groom's family provided the bride with a house.<ref name="noteStockard"/>{{rp|98}} In another reported ghost marriage, the groom's family sent wedding cakes and NT $120 to the bride's family, who returned it with a dowry of a gold ring, gold necklace, several pairs of shoes, and six dresses "all fitted for the use of the groom's living wife."<ref name="Wolf, Arthur P."/>{{rp|151}}

===Rites of the ghost marriage ceremony===
In a ghost marriage, many of the typical marriage rites are observed. However, since one or more parties is deceased, they are otherwise represented, most often by effigies made of paper, bamboo,<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|71}} or cloth.<ref name="noteJordan"/>{{rp|147}}

For instance, a ghost couple at their marriage feast, the bride and groom may be constructed of paper bodies over a bamboo frame with a papier-mâché head.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|71}} On either side of them stands their respective paper servants, and the room contains many other paper effigies of products they would use in their home, such as a dressing table (complete with a mirror), a table and six stools, a money safe, a refrigerator, and trunks of paper clothes and cloth. After the marriage ceremony is complete, all of the paper belongings are burned to be sent to the spirit world to be used by the couple.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|71}}

In another ceremony that married a living groom to a ghost bride, the effigy was similar, but instead constructed with a wooden backbone, arms made from newspaper, and the head of "a smiling young girl clipped from a wall calendar."<ref name="noteJordan"/>{{rp|147}} Similarly, after the marriage festivities, the dummy is burned.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|71}}

In both cases, the effigies wore real clothing, similar to that which is typically used in marriage ceremonies. This includes a pair of trousers, a white skirt, a red dress, with a lace outer dress.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|71}}> Additionally, they were adorned with jewelry; though similar in fashion to that of a typical bride's, it was not made of real gold.<ref name="Topley, Marjorie 1956"/>{{rp|71}} If a living groom is marrying a ghost bride, he will wear black gloves instead of the typical white.<ref name="noteJordan"/>{{rp|149}}

Most of the marriage ceremony and rites are performed true to Chinese custom. In fact, "the bride was always treated as though she was alive and participating in the proceedings"<ref name="Wolf, Arthur P."/>{{rp|151}} from being fed at the wedding feast in the morning, to being invited in and out of the cab, to being told of her arrival at the groom's house.<ref name="noteJordan"/>{{rp|147}} One observable difference in a ghost marriage is that the ancestral tablet of the deceased is placed inside the effigy, so that "the bride's dummy [is] animated with the ghost that [is] to be married",<ref name="noteJordan"/>{{rp|147}} and then placed with the groom's family's tablets at the end of the marriage festivities.<ref name="noteJordan"/>{{rp|148}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|3<!--[too narrow:] |colwidth=30em-->}}

==References==
{{refbegin}}
* {{wikicite |id=idBaker1979  |reference=Baker, Hugh D. R. ''Chinese Family and Kinship''. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.}}
* {{wikicite |id=idBall1904   |reference=As quoted by Baker: Ball, J. Dyer, ''Things Chinese: or Notes Connected with China,'' London, 1904.}}
* {{wikicite |id=idFreedman1970 |reference=Freedman, Maurice.''Family and Kinship in Chinese Society''. Stanford, CA: Stanford university Press, 1970.}}
* {{wikicite |id=idIkels1985  |reference=Ikels, Charlotte. "Parental Perspectives on the Significance of Marriage." Journal of Marriage and the Family Vol. 47 No. 2 (May 1985):253-264.}}
* {{wikicite |id=idJordan1972 |reference=Jordan, David K. ''Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: The Folk Religion of a Taiwanese Village.'' Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1972.}}
* {{wikicite |id=idMartin1973 |reference=''The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1973.}}
* {{wikicite |id=idStockard1989|reference=Stockard, Janice E. ''Daughters of the Canton Delta: Marriage Patterns and Economic Strategies in South China, 1860-1930.''Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989.}}
* {{wikicite |id=idTopley1955 |reference=Topley, Marjorie. "Ghost Marriages Among the Singapore Chinese." Man (Published by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) Vol. 55 (Feb., 1955): 29-30.}}
* {{wikicite |id=idTopley1956 |reference=Topley, Marjorie. "Ghost Marriages Among the Singapore Chinese: A Further Note." Man (Published by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) Vol. 56 (May, 1956).}}
* {{wikicite |id=idWolf1978   |reference=Wolf, Arthur P. ''Studies in Chinese Society''. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1978.}}
* {{wikicite |id=idWolfHuang1980|reference=Wolf, Arthur P., and Chieh-shan Huang. ''Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845-1945.'' Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980.}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite web|url=https://www.economist.com/node/9558423|title=Wet goods and dry goods|author=<!--Not stated-->|date=26 July 2007|website=[[Finance:The Economist|The Economist]]|access-date=18 April 2018}}
* {{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/world/asia/05china.html?hp&ex=1160107200&en=df0864f1add060df&ei=5094&partner=homepage|title=Dead Bachelors in Remote China Still Find Wives|last=Yardley|first=Jim|date=5 October 2006|website={{wipe|New York Times}}|access-date=18 April 2018}}
* {{cite web|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,958650-1,00.html|url-access=subscription|title=A Day in The Life......Of China: Free to Fly Inside the Cage|last=Kramer|first=Michael|date=2 October 1989|website={{wipe|Time (magazine)}}|access-date=18 April 2018}}

{{Types of marriages|state=autocollapse}}

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[[Category:Types of marriage]]

{{Sourceattribution|Chinese ghost marriage|1}}