Qingming is a traditional festival Chinese to pay tribute to and commemorate the deceased, and the living should pursue the distant and send mourning to carry forward public order and good customs and respect traditional culture, otherwise it is very easy to cause unnecessary contradictions. The Putuo court announced a special case before the Qingming Festival.
Qiu Fang, the daughter of Wang Laobo, who was more than 90 years old, died of illness, and her son-in-law SongNian also died of illness shortly after his death. The ashes of both men were placed in the house where they lived, and Wang Laobo and his family have been paying homage to their deceased daughter in the house ever since.
Later, Wang Laobo went to the memorial again, but found that he could not enter the house, and after contact, he was told that the ashes of the two had been selected by the three brothers of the son-in-law's family and buried together.
Wang Laobo believed that he was the one closest to his daughter and wanted to manage his daughter's ashes in his lifetime, so he sued his son-in-law's three brothers to the Shanghai Putuo District People's Court to request an order to return his daughter's ashes.
The three defendants stated that they were brothers with Song Nian and that according to traditional Chinese beliefs, their daughters had become husbands after they got married. After the death of Song Nian and Qiu Fang, they had no children, so the families of the three defendants buried the above two in the name of the nephew and niece of the deceased in the cemetery of Nanhui, and it was reasonable that Qiu Fang and Song Nian were buried together. Therefore, it is impossible to agree to Lao Bo Wang's litigation claim, but Lao Bo Wang can go to the cemetery to pay tribute.
After trial by the court, it was held that the ashes are different from other inheritances of the heirs, not only a simple material, but also an extension of the personality interests of the deceased, with personality symbolic significance; for the close relatives of the deceased, it is also a kind of special significance for the deceased's close relatives. Both the plaintiff and the defendant confirmed that Qiu Fang had not made a will, and when the close relatives could not reach an agreement on the custody of the ashes, the order of the right to dispose of the ashes should be determined according to the general traditional concept and according to the relatives who were estranged from each other.
However, the special feature of this case is that Qiu Fang is now buried and buried with her former spouse. According to the traditional moral concept of our country, "going into the ground for safety" is a consolation to the deceased, and the joint burial is a beautiful remembrance of marriage. Under these circumstances, although Laobo Wang was Qiufang's father, his request to return Qiufang's ashes was contrary to the public order and good customs of our country, so the court did not support Laobo Wang's request.
(The characters in the text are pseudonyms)
(Look at the news Knows reporter: Wu Haiping Editor: Fu Qun)