The Ghost Bride - The Book and the Real Ghost Marriage Behind it

Ghost Marriage is not something we only read about in fictional books and watch in horror movies. Sometimes the fiction is inspired by the truth, like with the Malaysian book, The Ghost Bride from 2013.

Malaysian author Yangsze Choo (朱洋熹) heard many types of lore, legends and myths when she was growing up in Malaysia. Being a fourth generation Chinese Malaysian, many of the stories she heard were rooted in Chinese tradition. “As a kid, you’d sometimes hear, ‘So-and-so got married to a ghost or to a dead man.’ And that always really sparked my interest,” she told InsideEdition.com once.

And when she wrote her book, The Ghost Bride, she wrote a fictionalized version of a real thing based on the stories she heard about Ghost Marriages. The book was published in 2013, but painted a story from a very different time.

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Malaysia

The book The Ghost Bride is set in 1890s Colonial Malacca, a Malaysian Chinese woman accepts a marriage proposal from a wealthy family to be the “ghost bride” to their deceased son who died a mysterious death to save her family from going bankrupt. Desperate to escape the situation, she needs to battle both the dangers of real life as well as the dangers of the afterlife and the hauntings of the dead.

Her book was a great success and even got its own Netflix TV-series adaptation. Although The Ghost Bride is a fictional story, the concept of Ghost Marriage is anything but.

Ghost Marriage or Mínghūn in Chinese Culture

The tradition of Ghost Marriage or Mínghūn 冥婚 is an ancient Chinese custom in China and among Chinese communities abroad, representing deep cultural beliefs surrounding death and the afterlife. In this unique ritual, the family of the deceased takes on the responsibility of arranging a marriage for their loved one who has passed away, ensuring that the bond continues even beyond the grave. This practice is believed to provide comfort and peace to the deceased, allowing them companionship in the afterlife, as it is thought that they will not be lonely without a spouse.

In more extreme cases, there is a living person that are to be married to a dead one. This happened more when parents had this choice or to send their children to brothels or servants. “In many ways, it is a choice between two evils. Never an easy choice,” Choo said.

Although Ghost Marriage is fairly uncommon, but these poignant ceremonies are still very much alive today, with families sometimes going to great lengths to conduct elaborate rituals and find suitable partners for their deceased relatives, demonstrating the enduring significance of family ties and filial piety even after death.

The Ghost Bride took three years to write and a lot of things inspired what would eventually be her book. When she researched for it she remembered all of these stories she had heard about and read in the papers. She also learned that her friend’s family had been involved with a Ghost Marriage many years ago in the 90s or early 00s.

The Wedding of the Dead that Inspired the Ghost Bride Book

Book Cover — **The Ghost Bride:** The cover of the book that Yangsze Choo *was inspired to write after the old tradition.//* Photo

One night, Yangsze Choo’s friend’s grandmother woke up from a dream. She said to the family the next day that it was her son who had visited and told her that he had met a girl in the underworld and wished to marry.

Her son gave his mother the girl’s name and address to her family so that the grandmother could go see for herself. So the grandmother went to the address she had gotten in her dream and according to the story, actually found the family.

Read More: Check out the book The Ghost Bride

When she talked to the mother of the girl who had died, it turned out that she had the same dreams as the grandmother had. She had been visited by her dead daughter in the dream and said that she too wished to get married.

The two families got together and held a wedding for their belated children. Just like they would have if they were alive they had a ceremony with Chinese bridal sedan chairs as well as a feast after they had taken their vows and they got their soul tablets.

After the wedding the two families were joined and worked as any extended family would, joining them for large family happenings.