Dirty Dishes	Dirty Dishes Archive

Thanks to the Los Angeles reader who sent a clip regarding a marriage issue that transcends the current homo-nuptials contretemps.

According to the New York Times, it is possible to marry the dearly departed in France, thanks to a law that law dates to December 1959, when the Malpasset Dam in southern France burst, inundating the town of Fréjus and claiming hundreds of lives. When de Gaulle visited the town a week later, a young woman named Irène Jodard pleaded with him to allow her to follow through on her marriage plans even though her fiancé had drowned. "I promise, Mademoiselle, to think of you," de Gaulle was reported to have replied.

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Indeed, the French Parliament drafted a law to permit Ms. Jodard to marry her deceased fiancé, André Capra. Hundreds of would-be widows and widowers have applied for post-mortem matrimony since then.

Anyone wishing to marry a dead person must send a request to the president, who then forwards it to the justice minister, who sends it to the prosecutor in whose jurisdiction the surviving person lives.

If the prosecutor determines that the couple planned to marry before the death and if the parents of the deceased approve, the prosecutor sends a recommendation back up the line. The president, if so moved, eventually signs a decree allowing the marriage.

Perhaps gay marriage proponents would be well advised to offer a similar proposal here, sort of as a means of political triangulation: marrying another guy seems a tame demand compared to wanting to wed a corpse.