The wedding of two children who died 30 years ago

Two families afflicted by the death of their two children 30 years ago "marry" them with a symbolic wedding, in order to avoid bad luck, according to a common Asian tradition.

The two "married" children, currently in India for nearly 30 years, called Chadaba and Shoba, died but their families brought them together as part of a tradition called "marriage of the dead." The night celebration was followed by a seven-step marriage ritual between husband and wife.

This strange custom of marrying off the dead is practiced by a few Indian coastal communities in states such as Kerala and Karnataka, and some cultural beliefs assert that people who died as children or adolescents under the age of 18 can reunite in a "spiritual marriage" and complete life. Course.

Through this, any troubled or malicious spirits are pacified, according to the belief, otherwise bad luck may fall upon the bereaved families, for example causing problems for those trying to conceive.

"We will marry our eldest son soon, but before that, we wanted our deceased daughter to get married so that she would be happy and bless the family moving forward," Shubha's mother Jayanthi Kulal told Face News.

There were at least two other such marriages in Kerala in 2017, but the true number in India is unknown because postmortem marriages are not legally registered, Chadappa and Chuba are represented by clothing, but dolls may also be used in place of the dead.

The unusual tradition is also carried out in China, Japan and France and varies across cultures, and previously in India, the whole neighborhood was invited for marriage.

But it is becoming a less common habit now especially when children are involved.

"Thirty years ago, we didn't have very good medical facilities like we do now," said Annie Aron, one of the bride's cousins.

So the impact of improved medicine means that fewer children die, so there are fewer deceased children who can participate in the pritha kalyanam tradition as well, and a younger, more skeptical generation is thought to come who reject the practice as a superstition.

Aaron believes that although this tradition is still used in bereaved families, the practice "helps parents overcome grief and shut them down, because it is always difficult for parents to lose a child".

As she put it.

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