Ghost marriage, also called posthumous marriage or necrogamy, is a marriage in which at least one of the two parties is deceased. Documented forms include the Chinese custom of minghun, a South Sudanese custom in which a dead fiance's brother stands in for him at the wedding so that any children are counted as the deceased man's own, posthumous marriage practiced by India's Billava, Badaga, Komati and Toda communities, and a French legal form recognized since 1803, originally intended for war widows. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Descent RuleSourced to the subject's own accountNot a descent rule: ghost marriage (also called posthumous marriage or necrogamy) is a marriage in which at least one participant is deceased, joining families through a ceremony rather than through any rule of lineage or descent-group membership; in South Sudan, when an engaged man dies his brother replaces him at the wedding, and any children born of that union are considered children of the deceased brother, a levirate-style family substitution rather than a descent rule of its own. 1 Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own accountDocumented in China (minghun), South Sudan, India (among the Billava, Badaga, Komati and Toda communities) and France (legally recognized since 1803). 1 Descent Rule
Descent Rule (category)Sourced to the subject's own account Connections
Associated With
Dinka, Social Groups The Dinka of South Sudan, alongside the closely related Nuer, are the classic ethnographic case of ghost marriage, in which a deceased man is married by proxy so a kinsman can raise children in his name.
Source Wikipedia: Posthumous Marriage
Ghost marriage, documented among the Nuer and Dinka, and levirate marriage both use a kinsman to continue a dead man legal line, differing in whether the deceased or his living brother is named as the legal husband.
In Rule Category
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Posthumous Marriage
WikipediaSouth Sudan sectionQuote, South Sudan section
In Sudan, there is a tradition that when an engaged man dies, his brother replaces him at his wedding, and any of his children are considered children of the deceased brother.
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