Marriage after death. Legal and religious aspects (Comparative Analysis)

The full-scale war has been raging in Ukraine for over three years, and for eleven years in a hybrid format. In the absence of official statistics on the death toll, it is evident that the losses for our country are dramatic and increasing every day. The death of a person is a grief for families, and in many cases, young men and women do not manage to get married. Still, many issues arise regarding the legal consequences that death entails. On the one hand, in the national legislation of most states, death is a legal fact that terminates family and other legal relations. Yet, in other countries, there is a practice of marrying a deceased person. In this respect, a number of questions are to be discussed, in particular: is it possible to marry a deceased person, does this violate the rights of the deceased, what are the legal consequences of marriage to a deceased person, does marriage to a deceased person violate the rights and interests of other family members (heirs)?

To answer these questions, it is important to clarify the nature of death from a religious and legal perspectives, the rights of the deceased and their relatives, consider the issues of dignity and respect after death, clarify the reasons for the existing practice of marriage after death and the legal consequences of such marriages. Therefore, the paper provides a comparative analysis of religious and legal norms, identifies current trends in the regulation of such categories as marriage and death, and specifies the optimal approaches for Ukraine, considering the war risks. The comparative legal, dialectical, systemic and historical-legal methods were applied in the study. This comprehensive methodology allowed us to obtain clear results and conclusions. The findings of the study allow us to argue that it is unlikely that the experience of France and some Asian countries in the legal regulation of marriage with the deceased will spread to other European countries and Ukraine. Still, in the context of the war in Ukraine, it is necessary to strengthen guarantees for those children who will be born after the death of a person in two, three or more years (owing to the use of reproductive technologies), in particular in the field of inheritance and social protection.