There are two kinds of marriages. A traditional one, where two living people marry each other.
And a yuukon-- a 'ghost marriage.' There's a lot of different kinds of ghost marriages. For some, it's a way for two people who couldn't marry in life for some reason (different social classes, families wouldn't let them, etc.) to become joined at least in the afterlife.
But where I'm from there were these priestesses who exist in a state where they're between living and dying. Their willpower alone keeps them from dying completely while they purify the mountain and keep something called the 'black water' from spilling over from the underworld to infect everything. In order to keep them from being too lonely and to help relieve their suffering and for them continue on a while longer, sometimes a man would come to marry them.
They'd choose a priestess from their portraits, and for that time only, the maiden's spirit would return to the world of the living. If the match was successful, the man's soul would remain in the casket with her, and they would return to the darkness together.
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And a yuukon-- a 'ghost marriage.' There's a lot of different kinds of ghost marriages. For some, it's a way for two people who couldn't marry in life for some reason (different social classes, families wouldn't let them, etc.) to become joined at least in the afterlife.
But where I'm from there were these priestesses who exist in a state where they're between living and dying. Their willpower alone keeps them from dying completely while they purify the mountain and keep something called the 'black water' from spilling over from the underworld to infect everything. In order to keep them from being too lonely and to help relieve their suffering and for them continue on a while longer, sometimes a man would come to marry them.
They'd choose a priestess from their portraits, and for that time only, the maiden's spirit would return to the world of the living. If the match was successful, the man's soul would remain in the casket with her, and they would return to the darkness together.