When a loved one dies, people go through emotional distress, and how they express their mourning varies greatly from person to person and from culture to culture. Grieving and mourning are normal ways to deal with the passing away of a loved one. People find many different ways to deal with grief, including expressing it outwardly through rituals and religious practices.
Some Himalayan regions are a classic example of how they express their grief over the death of a young man. People wail, addressing the deceased as the groom. Similarly, they address the deceased woman as a bride on her passing. Their parents' unfulfilled desire and their never-ending pain stemming from the wish that they were unable to carry out their child's marriage, haunt them throughout their lives.
“Afterlife Wedlock Belief System”
Some communities in the coastal regions of Karnataka and Kerala want to unburden themselves of this responsibility during their lifetime by marrying off their deceased offspring through rituals. The idea that ‘marriages are made in heaven and solemnised on earth’ fits excellently for these communities. Here, the marriage between deceased men and women is conducted to have them as a couple in the afterlife, birthing the diametric opposite of ‘till death do us part’. People living in coastal villages in these twin states believe that no one should die without tasting the fruit that they attribute to marriage, hence they desire to marry off their children even after their demise. In these regions, the institution of marriage is so powerful and revered that the deceased too are part of the marital system.
“Ghost Marriage”
It has become a tradition to marry the dead, and families who lose a loved one at a young age have to follow every ritual that would have needed to be followed if the deceased had been alive. They celebrate the wedding of someone who is no longer with them and establish relationships through what they refer to as ‘Pretha Maduve’ (marriage of souls). Outlandish as it may sound, the wedding is intended to calm the spirits down. There is a general belief that years of yearning for wedlock would haunt the unwed spirits, and the deceased repeatedly remind their families of this in the latter’s dreams.
“Match Making”
To find a suitable match for their beloved son or daughter, an advertisement is published to facilitate matchmaking. They list out the expectations and hope to find the right match.
One such recent advertisement left readers agape in coastal Mangaluru city in Karnataka's Dakshina Kannada district. In it, the parents sought a ghost groom for their long-dead daughter. Yes, you read that right! In the eerie ad, the family said it was looking for a groom who must have died 30 years ago for their female child, who also passed away three decades back. The groom's family must be from the same 'Bangera' caste and ready to perform a ghost marriage, the ad stated. The family said it wanted to perform 'Pretha Maduve' (marriage of the souls).