The most poignant story of the week comes from Japan where women who are trapped in unhappy marriages are secretly arranging to be buried apart from their husbands, saving money from housekeeping for a separate burial plot which can cost up to £16,000.

Haruyo Inoue, a writer who coined the term "post-mortem divorce", says: "The wives feel that they have no choice but to stay with the husband while they are alive, but in the next world they would like to get their freedom back."

—Allison Pearson, "Till death us do part," The Evening Standard (London), February 26, 2003

Unhappy wives?  These wives are acting just like France, Germany, and Russia vis-a-vis Saddam Hussein: wait until he naturally disintegrates (is he biodegradable ?-I thought he was a biohazard ) and then be free of the menace.

And what disposes these wives to believing that being buried together dooms one to togetherness in the otherworld?  Die like Romeo and Juliet or Bonnie and Clyde and then maybe there is linkage.

These wives remind me of orangutans whose most grotesque known act of violence is breaking off small twigs overhead while huddled in the trees and gently dropping them upon those invading their territory who are perceived as a threat.

Post-mortem planning is pure fantasy.  Let go of it.  Seek a true alternative.

I just love a quote that I encountered on shang2ti's site yesterday:

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

     —Helen Keller

Superstitions are fantasies: release.

Making one's life a daring adventure is the greatest quest of our times.