A famous ghost marriage in history was arranged by Cao Cao for his son Cao Chong who died young. According to the biographies of the Three Kingdoms and Wu Liewang (Volume 20), in the 13th year of Jian 'an, Cao Chong, the son of Cao Cao, fell ill and Mao asked for help. And death, very sad. Emperor Wen treated Mao leniently, and Mao said,' This is my misfortune, and you are Cao Cao's luck. Tears in his mouth, in order to hire Zhen Shi's dead daughter to be buried together, he was given the title of riding captain and named Wan Hou as the queen [4]. Cao Cao then hired Zhen, a woman who died young, as his wife. "。

Cao Chong was born by Cao Cao and Mrs Huan, and Cao Chong is very clever and a genius. When he was five or six years old, Sun Quan, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, sent an elephant to Cao Cao. Cao Cao wanted to know how heavy the elephant was. He asked many ministers and couldn't figure out how to weigh it. Cao Chong said, "If you put it on a big ship and carve its water mark, you will know it." Such a talented son died at a young age. No wonder Cao Cao was so sad about his death that he had to perform a ghost wedding for him.

The rise of ghost marriage is related to Cao Cao's doting on his children. However, there is also a folk saying that if the dead unmarried people don't get married, their homes will be haunted and their families will be uneasy. There, in ancient times when superstition prevailed, ghost marriage was generally recognized by the people and became a "legal marriage", and the owner of the tomb also became a "in-laws".

the Tang Dynasty

In the Tang Dynasty, ghost marriages also existed widely, which was reflected in the mysterious novels at that time. The story of "Wang Yi" in Records of Guang Yi written by the Tang people is like this. There was a man named Wang Yi who once passed by Li Shizhuang's door for a fair. I saw a girl of fifteen or sixteen in the distance, and the girl saw him, too. When they were interested, the girl asked her maid to send a message to Wang Yi, asking him to spend the night at the villa. The two met in the middle of the night, and after some touching, the girl suddenly felt unwell and a little absent-minded.

Wang Yi asked what was going on. It turns out that the girl came over the wall for a tryst. When she climbed over the wall, her foot was punctured by the climbing tooth in the corner, and the pain was unbearable. When the girl left, she said, "It seems that I can't live any longer. If you really have feelings for me, come to my grave to comfort my soul when you pass by. " After Wang Yi returned to the East to be an official, he heard that the girl was really dead when he passed by Li Shizhuang. So I went to the girl's grave with the maid in private, and I was very sad In a short time, the girl actually came out of the tomb, when Wang Yi fell to the ground and died suddenly. The maid saw that the soul of the king had entered the grave hand in hand with the girl, so the two families got married.

Southern Song Dynasty

According to "Yesterday's Dream" written by Kang in the Southern Song Dynasty, this custom was also very popular in the northern part of the Song Dynasty. "You married an unmarried person and died. The two media asked for each other. This is called a ghost matchmaker. All the family details were posted, and everyone prayed according to their parents' orders. Deb, the uniform of a robe, took the biography of a fierce woman in Yuan Dynasty (Volume 200) and recorded that there was a woman named Yang in Dongping who was famous for her filial piety. After her husband Guo San went to the army, she stayed to serve her in-laws. In the sixth year of Zhiyuan (AD 1269), Guo Sanshan died in battle. Mother Yang forced her daughter to remarry, and she wept bitterly and vowed not to obey. After the husband's bones were sent back to his hometown, the father-in-law considered that his daughter-in-law was young, and he would definitely remarry in the future, making his son a bachelor in the underworld. He planned to entrust his son with a dead woman to bury him and give him a blind date. Yang listened, more sad. He fasted for five days and finally hanged himself and was buried with her husband. Visible, ghost marriage in the yuan dynasty folk influence.

Republic of China (19 12- 1949)

"Ghost marriage" was also quite popular in the Republic of China, and many rich and powerful families would give this kind of marriage to people who died early. I once talked about the feng shui of Chiang Kai-shek's ancestral grave, and I also learned in the interview that Chiang Kai-shek's younger brother also had a "ghost marriage."

This is a little-known "marriage" of the Chiang Kai-shek family. If you say it, you have to explain it to Chiang Kai-shek's father. Jiang's father's name is Jiang. He has three sons: Jiang Jieqing, Jiang Ruiyuan and Jiang Ruiqing. Jiang Ruiyuan here is Chiang Kai-shek, that is to say, Chiang Kai-shek is three brothers. Jiang Jieqing is Chiang Kai-shek's half-brother and the first wife of Chiang Kai-shek's father. Jiang Ruiqing was born to Chiang Kai-shek's brother, Chiang Kai-shek's biological mother and his third wife, Wang Caiyu. Jiang Ruiqing is very clever, more talented than Chiang Kai-shek and very likable. Chiang Kai-shek mentioned this younger brother in First Lady Lue Wang. "He (Jiang Ruiqing) is the last one in my brother's behavior, and his talent is unique, which is beyond the reach of his brothers."

Wang Caiyu loved his youngest son very much, but unfortunately, Jiang Ruiqing didn't live a good life and died before he was an adult. Chiang Kai-shek is also very fond of this younger brother, and personally wrote a eulogy for him, and the brotherhood is beyond words. The death of Jiang Ruiqing gave Wang a great mental blow, and he was very sad. He soon fell ill. As a traditional Chinese mother, Wang sympathized with her youngest son and failed to bring him up. So Wang tried his best to hold a "ghost wedding" for his youngest son: he found a girl who died too early, was buried with his youngest son, and married him as a "daughter-in-law". Later, Wang was adopted as Jiang Ruiqing's son and gave Jiang Ruiqing a "descendant". When the dress is ready, the matchmaker will prepare wine and fruit for the grave as a wedding sacrifice. "

Marriage custom of Zhuang nationality

Spread in Mashan and Shanglin areas in western Guangxi. There is a record in "Lingbiao Man": "Longshan (now Mashan) has local customs. If the family is uneasy after the son's death, choosing a female corpse of the same age to be buried with him means that the son has a husband and wife and no longer contributes to the family. Friends and relatives will congratulate you when you are here. Both men and women are based on marriage and friendship. In this case, it is called' ghost marriage'. "

It is said that in the past, there was a man in a family who reached marriageable age (generally over thirteen or fourteen) and died without a wife. There is a disaster at home after death. Wu Xian thinks that the ghost of the deceased is at fault and asks his parents to ask for a wife in the underworld. So I found a female corpse of the same age and died at the end of my marriage. The two families agreed to send some gifts to the woman's house to prepare a banquet, and sent people to move the woman's body to the man's grave to be buried together. In the process of sending the female corpse, there is a way that Gong leads the way. The undertaker is not crying, but fighting. The scene is just like getting married, which is very grand.