Three persons have been detained in north China's Shanxi province for stealing a female corpse from a village tomb to sell it as a bride for an ancient ritual of the marriage of the deceased
Beijing: Three persons have been detained in north China's Shanxi province for stealing a female corpse from a village tomb to sell it as a bride for an ancient ritual of the marriage of the deceased.
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The incident was reported to the police by the villagers yesterday, when the accused were raiding the tomb, which led to their arrest, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
"A 72-year-old man Hou, who is the main suspect, was tempted by the idea of selling female bodies as brides to deceased single men when hearing the death of a young woman in a nearby village," public security bureau of Ruicheng County said.
The accused claimed to be relatives of the woman had found a buyer who agreed to purchase the body priced at 25,000 yuan (USD 3,900).
A "netherworld marriage", once popular in some parts of China, was a ritual where a man who dies unwed would bring bad luck to the family, so he must be buried with a female corpse as a ritual symbolising a wedding of the deceased.
In 2012, three men murdered a pregnant woman in Shaanxi Province and sold her body as a ghost bride in a case that prompted a national outcry against this grisly tradition.
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