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Ghost Marriages

A good chunk of the additional worldbuilding Secrets is inspired by a rabbit hole I started going down in 2021.

I really love stories that can weave in real-world practices and my cowriter and I are trying to make sure we don't half-ass references. We want to get this stuff right and when we take creative liberties we're hoping those liberties still fit in well. ANYWAY I absolutely LOVE Caitlin Doughty's youtube channel and it's highly possible I first heard of the concept of a Ghost Marriage with this video:

So she sorta scratches the surface in this video; it's more or less a quick overview that looks more at the modern iteration. This is unoriginal and lazy, but in light of not having a clue of where all I went in this rabbit hole I can't really give the sources I found that went more in depth-- so Wikipedia will have to do. The Ghost Marriage Vanda is entering, is a case of a Dead man being married to a Living Woman. So not exactly the type that Caitlin's video focuses on.

Because ATLA doesn't emphasize much about people's beliefs or lack of beliefs in the afterlife, I decided to lean more into the political ties/family lineage ties that can come with a Ghost Marriage.

Caitlin's Video also mentions a dowry but does not mention a Bride price When the jail guards in Gaoling are gossiping about the arrangement and say "these rich types will pay a premium for the safe arrival of their breeding stock." they're talking about the Bride Price. If this marriage is going to score this fledgling city political points in the Earth Kingdom, you can bet they're going to pay a hefty price. I'd also imagine that commoners in a country that's 80 years deep into war view a lot of of these practices and payments as impractical and absurd. I'm sure they suffer more from the war than the rich and powerful might. Some highlights from the wiki that fit in with the Ghost Marriage in Secrets are below the cut. in case you didn't wanna check out the whole page or start going down your own rabbit hole... which, I can't understand why you wouldn't want to go down your own rabbit hole... is that not the best feature of the internet?

Living, unmarried daughters In Chinese culture, an unmarried daughter is a source of great embarrassment and concern. Charlotte Ikels reports that, "Traditionally, girls who did not marry were regarded as a threat to the entire family and were not allowed to continue living at home. Even in contemporary Hong Kong, it is believed unmarried women are assumed to have psychological problems. Presumably no normal person would remain unmarried voluntarily."[13]: 254  For girls who choose to remain unmarried, engaging in a "bride-initiated spirit marriage" (or a ghost marriage initiated by a living bride) is seen as a successful "marriage-resistance practice"[1]: 92  as it allowed them to remain single and still be integrated into a lineage. This can evoke negative reactions such as having the ghost marriage called a "fake spirit-marriage", being referred to as someone "marrying a spirit tablet", or simply being seen as someone attempting to avoid marriage.[1]: 92–93 

Continuing the family line If a son dies before he is married, his parents may choose to arrange a ghost marriage in order to allow him his own descendants.[15] As put by James Dyer, "A man in China does not marry so much for his own benefit as for that of the family: to continue the family name; to provide descendants to keep up the ancestral worship; and to give a daughter-in-law to his mother to wait on her and be, in general, a daughter to her."[15] The ceremony itself has the characteristics of both a marriage and a funeral, with the spirit of the deceased bride being "led" by a medium or priest, while her body is transferred from her grave to be laid next to her husband.[10]: 29  At times, a living woman may be taken as a wife for a deceased, unmarried man, but this is rare.[10]: 29 

If a family were "suitably rich to tempt a [living] girl,"[10]: 29  a ghost marriage might profit them with a daughter-in-law. As a daughter is not considered "a potential contributor to the lineage into which she is born," but rather "is expected [to] give the children she bears and her adult labor to the family of her husband,"[12]: 127  the wife of a deceased son would benefit her husband's family by becoming a caregiver in their home.[13]: 255  Upon providing the deceased son with a wife, the family could then also adopt an heir, or a "grandson",[10]: 29  who would continue on the family line.

As daughters-in-law married through ghost marriages are expected to live a chaste life, their purpose is to become a "social instrument" that would enable the husband's family to adopt.[1]: 100  Such families would often prefer to adopt patrilineally related male kins,[1]: 95  usually through a brother who would assign one of his own sons to the lineage of the deceased.[16] The adoption would be carried out through a written contract which would then be placed under the dead man's tablet.[16] Following this, the adopted son would be expected to make ancestral offerings on his birth and death dates, and is additionally "entitled to inherit his foster father's share of the family estate."[16]

Other instances of ghost marriage As Chinese customs dictate that a younger brother should not be married before their older brothers, a ghost marriage for an older, deceased brother may be arranged just before a younger brother's wedding to avoid "incurring the disfavor of his brother's ghost."[18]: 29 

In the early days of immigration, ghost marriages were said to have been used to "cement a bond of friendship between two families"; no recent cases of such have been reported.[18]: 30 

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Ive sometimes mentioned in conversations over the last few years that the fandom invented korrasami and usually people go “no” or “huh?”

But like

Back on live journal

We were watching season one and I think about half of us started shipping it because the love triangle was so annoying

Considering how the later seasons were not being made at that time I strongly believe someone from the production team heard our cries and gave us at least that

X

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ight I'm gonna numb my brain with palworld and dinner THEN I'm either going to post about Ghost marriages to help get me back in the swing of writing OR I'm just gonna buckle down and get this next chapter ready because it's SO CLOSE anyway.

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the real feast was never the backyard bbq

Stop everything you're doing right now and go listen to kesha's new album. This is an order.

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The husband and I have decided that we will avoid socialization together tomorrow.

We’ve come up with an air tight plan to do so.

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It’s ten degrees cooler than it’s been all week but it’s still too hot for this!!!

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i think a really funny project that a statistics professor could have their class do is like. put a bunch of random, patently untrue demographic statements into a hat. "the most popular tv show among white men ages 24-27 is Bluey." "the majority of business majors are middle children." "bisexual women love hot chips." and each student picks one out of the hat and you gotta like. design a whole study and survey a group of people to specifically achieve that result. you have to prove it true. by whatever means necessary. you have to construct the most biased study possible and wrangle in your exact demographic to make that statement a statistical reality. i think people would learn a lot.

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I am really excited to down this!

As much time as we spent in Ba Sing Se we still hardly scratched the surface of the city so the potential for world building alone already has me in a chokehold and I kinda love the concept of a minor character getting really fleshed out.

I’m not mad at what I’ve seen here

Jin novel preview just dropped

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Jin novel preview just dropped

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I got threatened at work today and literally reacted with

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She has a button. Scratches activate licks.

She’s the easiest cat to give liquid meds to.

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A tender gaze the morning after their first night together.

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Something about Apothecary Diaries and the complexity of what it means to have a mother. Something about Maomao and her only memories of her mother being silence or a pain that has nothing to do with her but is reflected onto her anyway, and yet still engineering things so that Lakan, years later, would come to find and marry her. Something about all of the courtesans in the Verdigris House being like mother figures to Maomao, yet never paying attention to her when she cried. Something about Loulan doing everything in her power to not be a mother - taking drugs to avoid it, knowing that to have a child would be a selfish, cruel thing, even down to 'killing' the children who adore her. Something about Jinshi, and both of his mothers - the one who birthed him and the one who raised him. Anshi, and raising him to be mature and older than he should have had to be to be the opposite of his grandfather, the man who victimized her, and Ah-Duo, unable to be in his life because she chose to give him up. Something about mothers not being unconditional and uncomplicated; something about motherhood being absent, ugly, confined by circumstance or by past pain. Something about not wanting to be your mother; something about being too much like your mother. Something about how your mother haunts you regardless.

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Husband and I had a jar of cherries and various moonshine/whiskey/burbon and constantly added more cherries/booze to it. Kept it in the fridge. Got it when we bought the house in 2015. Had to throw it out after the power outage from Helene in 2024

an alcoholic beverage that you constantly replenish with identical mixers and alcohol, to the point where you're unsure any of the initial beverage remains. and yet it is fundamentally the same beverage as it was to begin with. the sip of theseus

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The downside of the non-process of plotting and researching my cowriter and I have done over the last couple of years is that it's damn near impossible for me to track down all the different cultural things we referenced and where those were from.

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Firstly, when you get this, you have to answer with 5 things you like about yourself, publicly:) Then, send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers (non-nego-tiable, positivity is cool✨)

hmmmm 5 things lesssseee 1. There are not hills that I will not die on. I don't half-ass care about most things, I hole-ass care. 2. I have a lot of patience with myself when it comes to learning new things. I credit job-hopping. 3. I can pretty much cook wherever, whenever, I knew this before Helene but Helene really proved it. 4. I am a mostly-functional adult who keeps their bills paid and lives in an alright environment. It's a real feat considering where/how I grew up. 5. I can make my hair do the Farrah Fawcett thing