The Trade of Chinese Ghost Brides

Chinese gangsters once again prove the aphorism, "Dead girls don't say no."

A ring of gangsters who traded in the bodies of women they murdered, selling them as brides to keep dead bachelors happy in the afterlife, has been arrested in China.

The men preyed on the superstitions of ill-educated farmers eager to ensure that a dead son was happy in the afterlife. It is not uncommon in rural parts of China for a family to seek out the body of a woman who has died to be buried alongside their son after the performance of a marriage ceremony for the deceased pair.

Leaving aside the whole "murder" aspect, this is still pretty dang creepy: as I understand it, the theory is that a hot, nubile corpse can be married to any peasant farmer's son without so much as a grudging acquiescence. It gets even worse, though: the gangsters apparently happened upon the scheme when they bought a mentally handicapped woman to sell as a bride, only to realize she was worth more dead than alive.

Ghost brides are murdered to give dead bachelors a wife in the afterlife [Times Online]