How to Legally Marry Someone Who is Dead...

[Music] Free at half. Leave the original Ode pafum. Reports do it too. Then meeting crap. Done. Chronic migraine doesn't care about your to-do list. For people with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. Botox, on a bottle line in toxin A, prevents headaches and adults with chronic migraine. It is not approved for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. Botox prevents, on average, 8 to 9 headache days a month, versus 6 to 7 for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myosthenia Gravis or Lambert Eaton Syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Ask your doctor, visit BotoxCronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-444 Botox to learn more. This podcast covers mature, intense, morbid and sometimes just scary stuff. Lister discretion is advised. First comes love, then comes marriage, or so the saying goes. But on rare occasions, first comes death is more appropriate. Welcome to thirty morbid minutes. This is the podcast where we take an episodic deep dive into topics, places, people and things of a morbid macabre dark and downright grizzly nature. I'm Elise Williams. And I'm just Gavisami. And just as like a forewarning today for myself only, there's a lot of French words today that I probably will butcher the hell out of. So apologies in advance. So bear with me. Don't bear with Elise though, she knows French and so she misses them up come after her. For me, they'll sound more French Canadian, which will also be agreed just to the ears of a real French person. No shade to French Canadians. The ears will sound more Italian. I know, as I was pronouncing some of them earlier, I was like, what do I sound like? I'm like, there was one word later. Like Cordelia, sis. That's not right. That's not right. Let's get into it. On April 20th, 2017, around nine p.m., days away from the French presidential election, a car drove up to a parked police van. A man got out of the car, pulled out an automatic weapon, and opened fire on the van, wounding two police officers, and killing police officer Xavier Jugele. About a month following this horrific act amid protests and national mourning, Jugele was married to his longtime partner, Etienne Cargelet, in front of both of the mayor and former president of France. Now you might be wondering if Jugele was dead, how was this possible? While the answer lies in French law and tradition, specifically a little thing called posthumous marriage, otherwise known by a much more ghastly sounding term, necrogami. Yeah, the practice of posthumous marriage or necrogami involves a living person marrying someone who is dead, or two dead people being married to each other. It's romantic. I'm so kicking myself that we didn't do this episode before you're wedding. No, okay. Oh, boy. This is among the countries, which legally recognize necrogami. Okay, go off France. Okay. As regulated and protected under Article 171 of the civil code enacted into law as a December of 1959. Mm, and it reads, "The president of the Republic may, for grave reasons, authorize the celebration of the marriage where one of the future spouses is dead after the completion of the official formalities indicating unequivocally his or her consent." Posthumous marriages in France were a thing long before the establishment of this law, though. They kind of originated or were a thing during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century. It was loosely provided for in the Napoleonic Code, the law written by a bunch of politicians appointed by that angry little guy. You all know the one. I think Joaquin Phoenix portrayed him in Napoleon the movie. Yeah. And I think, is he, he wasn't really that little, I think that's a misconception. Really? Okay. I always thought, I mean, that's where isn't Napoleon syndrome comes from? Just like being a little man syndrome. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't, I think it was like also a part of the thing where his enemies really tried to downgrade his size too. Oh. To infantilize him. Is he the one whose penis is on display? Do we, Justin? You would know this. Oh. You would know. Yeah. It's a penis. I wouldn't know. I know where all the pen I are displayed across the globe might be Napoleon. It could be. I might need to double track my records. I do have like a whole filing cabinet right here in my records. But let me double track after the podcast. I just googled Napoleon's penis, which is great because I'm also on my husband's computer. You just logged into his Google search. So he's going to be like Napoleon's penis. Exciting. Yeah, it was amputated during an autopsy shortly after his death in 1821 and his since been passed through several owners. Okay. The doctor just took it. Okay. When he died. All right. Well, we cleared that up. We had to, we had to talk about that. Yes. Yeah. Anyway. The Polionic Code. It was loosely played again following World War I when, as we know, an extremely large number of young men lost their lives on the battlefields, leaving behind their betrothed, but it wasn't until one case in 1959 that Necrogamy became an official measure written into the French civil code. That year, there had been an above average amount of rainfall. And the malpaced dam located between the Frazier and Cannes quickly filled to capacity. The powers were afraid that opening the spillway to relieve pressure on the dam would impede the construction of the Marseilles motorway downstream. So they waited until it was too late. But disaster struck the malpaced at 913 p.m. on December 2nd, 1959, when the dam wall broke unleashing a torrent of water up to 70 miles per hour through the valley, destroying everything and killing 423 people, including a young man named Andre Capra. Before his death, Capra had been expecting a baby with his fiance, Irene Jadar. This horrific tragedy robbed not just Capra of his life, but Irene of her life with him. According to an article from Time Magazine in 1964, Irene proclaimed, "I shall marry him anyway." "Ah, that was good." "But Daddy, I love him." "Bip is good, bye, wait, wait, wait." "I don't care if he is dead." So she wrote to then the president, Charles DeGal, with a request to marry her dead fiance, Andre. DeGal said he'd look into it, and that's how Article 171 came to be. "I said I'll move some things around, I'll look into it." "Yeah." "It was important to Irene that her child be seen as legitimate, and that's been the motivation for many other women who have pursued these types of posthumous marriages." A study was conducted regarding French posthumous marriage unions performed between 1960 and 1992. It found that of the 1,654 wedding requests, almost 95% came from women. It obviously wore time, okay, is a factor. This was between 1960 and 1992, though. So it was just that men are less likely to say, "Yeah, I want, I want to get married." And it also sounds like a lot of these women were left with a child, and they said. Yeah, yeah, you're right, and that could be a situation where it's just like, "I want my child to know his dad, I don't know, keep the last name in some way, all of that." But then I also have a biased point of view when it comes to men and all of that. I'm like, "Man, if it was reversed, it's just like, "Yeah, I'll find another woman." I don't know. That's just my bias, you know. I love you, I miss you, but I don't need the ring. Exactly, exactly. But there is a process to request permission. Remember, we said there would need to be some kind of consent, and you might not be approved. According to the blog "Amusing Planet" every year, French authorities receive around 50 requests for posthumous marriage in less than half, about 20 get approval. The still living person in the relationship has to send a request to the president of France, who forwards it to the Justice Minister, who forwards it to the prosecutor for the living person's district, and eventually it makes its way back to the president. The still living person also needs consent from the surviving family members of the deceased. It's interesting to note here that you're also assigned a wedding date after the fact by the government, and it's the day before your spouse died. So if, for example, they died on March 6th, that makes your wedding date for all legal reasons March 5th. Yeah, and there's a lot of red tape too. You basically have to provide evidence that you were in a relationship and had intended to marry and would have had the death not happened. A good example of a piece of evidence would be an engagement announcement published before the death occurred. Which I feel like is a less and less common thing. thing. Like it used to be, oh, I would publish an engagement announcement in the local paper. Yeah. People don't really seem to do that as much. No. We have social media now. But I mean, in present day, yeah, I guess maybe in present day, if this were to, you know, this was a more of a thing. And I don't know, maybe that would count. I don't know. Yeah, I didn't find information about that. But I feel like what you're saying is probably right. Like it's, okay, did you have a, maybe you had a social presence that was obvious with this partner? Was there photographic evidence that you guys were together with the rings and did you make a wedding website? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Everybody makes like a tie the knot wedding website now. Yes. How do you did that exist? But I guess it's the other thing too, where like anybody could make a website, but also anybody could put an ad in the paper about their engagement. So true, true. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll learn more about this right after a word from our sponsors. I do not have any ideas for Christmas persons. Okay, well, me neither. So we are in this together. But the good thing is that uncommon goods makes holiday shopping genuinely fun with thousands of one of a kind gifts for everyone on your list, Jess, all in one place. And common goods really does have something for everybody, especially for, you know, some of your weird relatives, my weird Uncle Steve, who literally has everything. Uncommon goods looks for products that are high quality, unique, and often handmade or made in the US. Many are crafted by independent artists and small businesses making every gift feel meaningful and truly one of a kind. What have you found for Uncle Steve on there, Jess? Well, this one is actually for a friend of mine who is a huge book nerd. This beautiful handmade in India actually book Christmas ornament. And she collects Christmas ornaments as well. So I'm like, this is the absolutely perfect gift for her. But it's beautifully made with beads. I think she's going to freaking love it. And when you shop at uncommon goods, you're supporting artists and small independent businesses. Many of their products are handmade in small batches. So they will sell out. And with every purchase you make at uncommon goods, they give back one dollar to a non-profit partner of your choice. They've donated more than $3.1 million to date. Don't wait. Cross those names off your list before the rush. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com/30morbid. That's uncommongoods.com/30morbid for 15% off. Uncommon goods were all out of the ordinary. Free at half. Leave the original Ode Parfum. Yves Sandoron. And we're back. When Dominique Labere died in 2020 of illness, his partner of 40 years Pullet Al-Qadet asked President Macron to grant them nuptial status after the fact. Obviously, they had a very long life spent together as evidence of their commitment to one another. But Pullet and Dominique also already sent out their invitations to the guests and they made a public announcement of their upcoming marriage. Like we're talking about, they had the invitations out. They had an announcement. There is a system that they were able to prove within, okay, we were a legitimate couple. In the same way that you can't get dead people to cast votes, you can't just be like digging up people, body, or scanning obituaries looking for spouses. Because if the laws were lax, I'm sure scam artists would try to exploit this and be like, "Oh, I'm going to look through." Remember we talked about obituary bandits? Yeah. Who would look up obituaries trying to scam people. I'm sure somebody would be like, "Oh, I'm going to look in the obituaries, see who's dead and then try to claim that we were in a relationship." And then for many reasons, they died with a lot of money and whatever power, yeah, it's. Yes, but that is where. That's why there are all these protections and barriers in place. It's not a life insurance policy. Yes, there are definitely situations where poshmas marriage is designed so that the still living spouse and any children are taken care of, but still in France, there's no interstate succession. Interstate succession, by the way, which I had never heard of, but it is the legal process that determines how a person's assets are distributed when they die without a valid will. That's as good to know, like I didn't know about this either, because we've talked about our wills. We on this podcast, we have talked about them in the lack thereof in the fly, we do not have them. So, I guess, interstate succession, which I don't know if it exists in the U.S. Yeah. Yeah. I don't too afraid to google it. So we'll just live in bliss. Yeah, bliss. Absolutely. But this does not apply when it comes to necrogamy. You cannot inherit the assets of prosperity of your prospective dead spouse unless they were assigned to you. And with that said, the retroactive marriage does make you eligible to receive the pension or life insurance of the deceased. Okay. Okay. So if somebody has a house or whatever, I guess you can't get that, but you can get a, they're ongoing pension. I mean, that's something, I guess. Currently, France is the only country in the Western world that legally recognizes necrogamy. Okay. I don't know. I'm just like, okay. There are other countries with the supplies and maybe we will talk about them on a future podcast. There are other countries that that do have rules and ways to circumvent death and marry your spouse posthumously. And it's for a lot of similar reasons, like in France. In the U.S. there's some gray stuff with Mormonism. Okay. Sorry. Where it's like do we recognize this federally? Do we recognize this legally? No, but they're doing it anyway. Yeah. You know what they're doing. Yeah. But you know, if we had tried to talk about all these countries and their laws and how they do it, it would have been a much longer, longer, longer episode. And we should talk about, I think it's China specifically because there's a lot of issues that are happening over there with some of their posthumous death. Oh God. Okay. Maybe that's a feature episode. We revisit this, but through that lens. Okay. Yeah. Could the concept eventually come to be more accepted worldwide? Maybe there's been a new discourse recently inspired by a movie that came out this year starring Ashlyn B and Colin Hanks called And Mrs. I love Ashlyn B so much. I'm not familiar with her. She is just like a comedian and actress and there's a show this way up that she is on. She's just great. She's like good and everything she's in. This is where you come out and say I'm a huge Colin Hanks fan. I'm a huge Colin Hanks fan. Oh yeah. Colin Hanks, you can say it. I love Colin Hanks. There we go. I said it. It's been in here. Maybe you don't. Hey Colin, if you're listening, what's up? I feel like he seems like a nice dude that I feel like he'd be like, yeah, come on three more minutes. Great. Bring your dad too. I'll run it by my dad. Yeah. Bring him though. Just bring him. Anyway. Okay, Colin, do whatever you need to do. I'm not going to stop you. That would be amazing. But yeah, this movie, well, I haven't watched it, but I did look it up and looks cute. Yeah, it's probably a kind of depressing rom-com. Anyway, the log line on IMDb reads, "When a reluctant bride to be his fiancée dropstead, she insists on marrying him anyway, vowing to overcome public opinion, the law of the land, and her loved ones objections." Okay, maybe not as much of a rom-com. Yeah, but when you put it in the human spirit. Yeah, it's when you put it like this. If me and Devon, and we got married a couple months ago, if me and Devon were slated to get married and then he dropped dead like a month before, I would who I, I feel like I would want to. That's hard. Would you, okay, would you do it? But then as the stand-in used the blow-up doll with his face on it that we had at the bachelor party. I deflated that shit. That is in the trash. It's in the trash. No, I would just deflate it and then roll it up and just keep it somewhere. Keep it, you know, for backup emergencies like this, if this were to happen. Just think about when Devon's 80 years old, he's an old man, and then you're able to blow up that doll and he's able to look at that and say, "That's what I was like as a young man." Oh, wow, it literally looked exactly like that blow-up doll. That's so poetic. So poetic. Now I feel really shitty for deflating it and throwing it in the trash. And someone might find it in the trash. You know, it's interesting because it's like if, if he were to drop dead like months and months before, maybe I wouldn't go through with the marriage. But if he dropped it a week before, I'd be like, "I'm still going to marry that man." I don't know, this is hard. I think he would have done, I think, I feel bad that we're talking about Devon in this way, but. Well, just in general, I'm just talking about if I, I mean, I guess it's hard to say, it's hard to be a bias here, but I think you'd still do it no matter what, right? Yeah, I think, and you know, I would say this is very circumstantial. We've been together for 10 years now. So like, I'd be like, "No, I'm marrying that man." It was always meant to be. Like, we're getting married. If I maybe was with a person for like two, three years, and then we're getting married. I don't know, it's so circumstantial. And that's also not to say it's like, it doesn't matter the amount of time you're with that person, love is love. And if you wanna be with him, you wanna be with him. But this is hard 'cause my first instinct was like, "Yeah, I'm still gonna marry him no matter what." Like, we were always meant to be and he's gonna die in his grave stone. There's gonna be another space next to it for me. - I'd still go in the honeymoon. (laughs) - Yeah, please let me get all of the honeymoon funds. And I'll go on my own. - Well, it's like in a romcom when, you know, the bride or the groom is left at the altar, but they still go on the honeymoon. - Yes. - 'Cause their best friend goes, "Yeah, you don't just sit around here, "mopey, you still go to Hawaii." - Yeah, and then they meet the new love interest, but days later, after they were in this long-term relationship. - Yep, yep, yep. - That's how we're supposed to believe that's healthy and not at all toxic. - That's why it's a movie, baby. But in this movie, Gemma lives in London, and her fiance is American. So this truly is a work of fiction, but we hope Gemma got her said happy ending. - Because ultimately, even to be granted the exception in France, it's bittersweet. Like we said, you know, you're getting, yes, you're getting to marry that person you love, but you still know the circumstances. You still know it's obviously for a horribly tragic reason. For most people, they're wedding days, one of the most happiest days of their lives. - But not for those who get married posthumously, and you need only do some searching online to see pictures of young war, without 19th century brides posing alongside the coffins of their deceased beloved, very, very sad. - They're really sad, but they also, I mean, they kind of went hardcore with it. They're like, nah, I'm gonna dress in the dress, and I'm gonna pose next to my dead husband. - Yeah, that is morbid. - It's very sad, chose the, you know, fragility of love, life, and death. And I think, oh, it's weird. We're ending on a really depressing note, even though we goofed on dead marriage a lot in this one. - Hey, everyone, listen to you. I'll know what you signed up for. You know what this is. - It is what it is. - Look, we do the disclaimer at the top of the show. - We do. - And then it's just kind of on all of you. - And we did, to be fair. And you're right, it's on all of you. And to be fair on our social and in the description, it does say a comedy podcast. So, we haven't talked about this, you know, long time, but we do have kind of a rule where we try to, try to stick to a hundred years, where if something happened a long time ago, we don't feel as bad about, you know, being a little bit more, now we're not trying to mock or have, find, make jokes about people's tragedies, but we're just, you know, you get it. - Yeah. - Death comes for us all. - I was about to say the same thing. It really does come for us all, for sure. - Sometimes you can only laugh. - Although, you know, I know to me and you, I'm pretty sure we're in agreeance that our most morbid podcast was "Coffin' Birth," and we did make sure to be very intentional with not making jokes. I am curious to hear if we did a poll of what our listeners would say is our most morbid podcast in their opinion. - Ooh, that's a great idea. - Yeah. - I would love to know what they think. - I know, the thing is, it's like, if we did a poll, you know, like on social, they only give you so many. - Maybe it may be an Instagram question, like, fly with what you think are most morbid at. We literally tell people not to listen to the "Coffin' Birth" episode. (laughing) It's like a suck, sorry. - What podcast is out there telling people not to listen to episodes? - I know, and honestly, I think that was the episode where we decided to start doing the disclaimer, didn't we? - Maybe. - Or maybe around there? I don't know. - We did some sort of disclaimer for that one, or we were like, maybe we should say something before we did it. I think we did. I don't know if that was the actual episode that started the disclaimer, but I feel like we said something because it was like, sorry, this is rough, you know? - Yeah, which, again, have to assume by the title of this podcast, people know what they're getting into. - And they're here for it. They're here for it, so they wanna hear it, but yeah. Who's signing up for "Coffin', Bruce?" (laughing) I'm gone, dear God. Well, thanks for sticking with us, guys. - Yeah, thanks for being with us. And yeah, we appreciate you all so much. We're working, currently working. We're in a little bit slow movie because this is a part-time endeavor for both of us, but working at, trying to get some of our classic merch back on the shelves. And by shelves, I mean, on a website. (laughing) - Well, there gonna be somewhere, they're probably gonna be in a warehouse somewhere, so there could be shelves in there. But yes, on a website. - Those are thrown in a bucket. - Okay. - Five hundred. And if they look at our stuff and they go, put it in the bucket. - There are no shelves for these things. - Shouldn't I put it on the shelf, boss? - Nah. - Put that one in the bucket. - Okay, that's a bucket shirt. - Oh, okay. - Yeah, yeah. - Oh, absolutely, it's a bucket shirt. - No, I'm just kidding. Our stuff will be nice. - It'll be, no, for real, it is. Yes, it'll be really great. Excited to get that move in, too. - I just want to give a shout out here, shout out to my friend Grant, who we went to like a mutual friend's birthday party a few weeks ago at a bar, and Grant showed up and he was wearing our two skeleton shirt. - Really? - And I was like, oh my God. - I love that. That's our first, one of our first ones. - Yeah, and he's like, he's like, I wear it all the time. (laughing) - Also, thank you, Grant, and also your friend, AJ. Anytime I see a picture of him, he seems to always be wearing our black cabinet of curiosity shirt. - He loves it, and his biggest criticism is he's like, it should say 30 more minutes on it. Why doesn't it say 30 more minutes on it? - We have one shirt that was towards the tail and of Rupert Heath that has like a skeleton coming up from the grave that we made sure it does have 30 more minutes on it. - Yeah. - Well, I also love the way that we tried to incorporate it or our artists did in more subtle ways, the shirts designed by Stevie that have the Roman numerals. - Yes, that was a great one. - Yeah. - Yeah, I thought that was really cool too. - We've had some really great shirts and designs and stuff, and yeah, I am very excited to bring them back. More photo shoes with me and you, wearing them, getting cute, you know, this is the best. - We were first being excited for the shirt second for the photo shoes. (laughing) - No, it really was so nice seeing everybody posting their photos of their merch. That was great. I love to see it. - We like to be a little goth with it too. - Oh yeah. - I got a big spot in my heart for a goth kid. - Same, same, bring back my like teenage years, but there's still, it's still inside me. It'll always be there, so. - Ever Crombe and Fitch is selling a pretty great matrix shirt right now. - And I thought, are you serious? - Yeah. - What business does Ever Crombe have selling a matrix shirt? I'm looking this up immediately, Ever. - Jessica, I bought a Lord of the Rings t-shirt from them. - Wait, I'm so confused. - It's a really nice quality. - Ever Crombe, a matrix shirt. - All right, I see it, I see it. I can't believe it, yep, there it is. Ever Crombe, the matrix graphic tee. I see the Lord of the Rings one. - Maybe we'll see a 30 more shirt there one day. - I thought would be incredible, incredible. But we'd hire what they used to do back in the day. I hired these like super buffed jock guys. Yep, standing outside of the store. Where do I have to go? - Yeah, I was gonna say, he's not wearing the t-shirt. He's just standing shirtless in front of the store, holding the t-shirt. - Yep, perfect, perfect. - And not even in a way where you can see the design very clearly. (laughing) - I'm envisioning all this at my head. - He still wanna marry Devon even if he's dead. - Yeah, I can't believe they used to do that back in the day. The shirtless model? - Yes, at the mall. It was so just like, I'm walking by with my dad. I'm in middle school. (laughing) - You should, I mean, I doubt your dad remembers, but it'd be interesting to pull and talk to a normal adult because as you're 13 years old, you're like, this is the coolest, but an adult was probably like, what the hell is going on here? - Absolutely, that's what I would be like now at my age, 36, I'd be like, what are you guys doing out here? - Get back, get back, get back, get cover up. (laughing) - Oh, well, this has been fun, you guys. Necrogamy, you know, it was great. - You know where we are, follow us on social media at 30 more than minutes. - You and I will be practicing some necrogamy as wives and my wife in the afterlife. - That's true, we will. I'm ready. - Mm-hmm. - I'm ready. - Let's go, bad bye, Jessica. - Bad bye, Elise. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - The Secret Society of semi-home made, listen up. Sam's Club has pre-made dishes for a Thanksgiving feast that's ready in two hours, all while tasting suspiciously homemade. Come join us, Sam's Club. - Individual oftentimes may vary. ♪ We're all here ♪ ♪ It's family ♪ ♪ The presence for the ones you love ♪ ♪ I don't know ♪ - This is Blue, from the UPS Store, with a very special holiday announcement for small business owners. We're open! (cheering) Let's be real, your deadlines don't take holidays. 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