- Minghun
Minghun (Chinese: 冥婚, also called "afterlife marriage") is a custom of rural
China of arranging afuneral for a bachelor son to include joint burial with a recently deceased unmarried woman in a form ofmarriage . As it involves the (often commercial) procurement of human remains, it is officially outlawed in modern day China but persists among traditional communites. It is seen as a logical extension of the obligations of family of one generation to the next, by arranging for the deceased what they were unable to do for themselves in life. The custom is particularly prevalent in theLoess Plateau region of northern China, an impoverished rural area southwest of Beijing.References
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/world/asia/05china.html?hp&ex=1160107200&en=df0864f1add060df&ei=5094&partner=homepage|Dead Bachelors in Remote China Still Find Wives]
New York Times
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