I was reading over the Kelly Link interview that was posted by Kayla on Jan. 29 mainly about "The Great Divorce" and how the story came about. One of the interview question asked Link about how she came upon the "concept of the living marrying the dead." Link's reply to the question mentioned how zombies were on her mind because she was watching numerous zombie movies around that time as well as writing about certain haunting qualities that the dead seem to possess over the living. While her reply was satisfactory, I was reminded of a certain key phrase, "Ghost marriages." I first learned about ghost marriages when I took a Defining Marriage class last semester and found this particular custom to be bizarre at first but logical after considering the circumstances in which some of these brides will take a deceased husband, which in some cases is to hold on to personal wealth and property rights. So I guess the question for everyone is, if anyone ever found themselves in a situation where a ghost marriage might be considered a possibility, would anyone ever consider it as an alternative? They say communication is key to a happy marriage, I guess frequent seances would be in order, huh? In that case, who is to say the living can only marry "ghosts"/"the dead"......maybe it would considered discrimination to leave all the other undead or dead-like creatures out of the equation when talking about this particular type of marriage.....no?
Link to Ghost Marriage in General
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_marriage
Link to Chinese Ghost Marriage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Ghost_Marriage
Kayla's Link to Kelly Link's interview for immediate access
http://www.one-story.com/index.php?page=story&story_id=59
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Ghost marriages in "The Great Divorce" and elsewhere would be a great paper topic for somebody.
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