China's grave offense: Ghost wives

[icedragon17]

BEIJING - Ghost stories might have been recently exorcised from bookshelves by Chinese censors for the horror they inflict on the public, but equally grisly tales of "ghost wives" have been unfolding in real life.

When Shen Wentang, a peasant from central China's Hebei province, bought a "ghost wife" for his dead father, he asked no questions about where the body had come from - and showed little curiosity about finding this out.

He knew that things had changed from the past, when an afterlife marriage was nothing out of the ordinary and families of both the "bride" and "groom" would have celebrated it with toasts and a feast. Authorities now frown on these feudal customs, so Shen wanted the marriage done quickly and without much ado. Still, he was grateful that the body of the ghost wife was dressed in a shroud in the auspicious color for weddings - red.

He had had to borrow funds to pay for the body, and 3,500 yuan (US$454) exceeded the annual earnings of many of his home village. Then, working swiftly with two relatives one spring dawn, Shen unearthed his father's grave, lifted the coffin's lid and slipped the female body inside.

All he remembered of the woman later on were the red dress and her age - about 40. Shen's father, whose wife had walked away years ago, now had a new woman to keep him company in the netherworld. He could rest in peace.

Little did Shen know that the ghost wife - a mentally retarded woman - had been lured to her death by a profit-seeking peasant. The ghost wife and five other women had been murdered by Song Tiantang, from Hebei's Linzhang county, so he could sell their corpses to be married in the afterlife.


Some have speculated that the murders have been prompted by the mounting death toll in China's mining industry, which has pushed up demand for ghost wives for casualties. In many of the interior provinces where coal is produced in small and unsafe mines, deadly accidents have been happening weekly. China's official tally of coal miners' deaths for 2006 stood at 4,746, or an average of 13 each day.

With so many male miners dying prematurely, there is a booming market for ghost wives, one middleman told Xinjingbao. "If the groom has died in a coal-mine accident, my commission for finding a bride is higher," the man, identified as Wang Zengxi, told the paper.

source: asia times online

[chiongster]

I find practice is cruel and blatantly ignorant. To kill someone just because of the traditional practice to require wife for afterlife? Old China and Egypt (even India) have similiar practice 0.o .

[DEPTHSING]

if u'd ask me i think that those "chinamen" are way lacking in ethics. even sellling the body of a person who dies of a natural death is highly disgusting(well, i do sppt pple who donate their organs after death).

the authorities sould impose a heavier penalty on such things, in order to prserev the reputation of its own country and pple.