Gay marriage? Defense of marriage? Old hat. So last year. If you want to be on the cake-cutting edge of controversial conjugality, get ready for the Next Big Thing: dead marriage.

Yes, bachelors, it's getting so that even the grave is no refuge from the altar. She will jam a ring on your cold, dead finger, and your cold feet will not rescue you.

A woman married her late boyfriend last month in ... now don't start ... France. I think France has taken enough abuse these past few years, so I will point out that you can't just dig random people up and marry them there. You need the permission of the president.

And the president isn't going to let you dig up Victor Hugo or Jim Morrison or Marie Antoinette and say "I do." The dead party's family has to be OK with it, and the couple has to have done the premarital paperwork before the Reaper cuts short an engagement.

But, having met all the requirements, a 35-year-old Frenchwoman widowed herself in Nice when she married a former cop killed by a drunken driver in 2002.

As the groom had been dead a year and a half, the ceremony was not open-casket.

She commented later in a television interview that "it could seem shocking to marry someone who is dead." I will leave it to long-married couples to insert their own joke here.

The Riviera bride is not alone. About 20 people wed the dead every year in France. A Malaysian couple killed in a landslide in Taiwan will be unofficially married by a Taoist priest when the urns containing their cremains are returned to their families. And just last week, the New York Post ran a story about a young man who plans to symbolically marry his late girlfriend.

Women might call this sort of scenario romantic -- oh, for a love stronger than death! -- while many men might just call it abuse of a corpse. It is definitely a drastic way to get out of ballroom dancing lessons.

If it ever catches on here, we will need a catchy, euphemistic name for it so it can be marketed and become part of the vast marital-industrial complex. "Dead wedding" is too blunt and sounds like a punk band. Necronuptials? Mortrimony?

Whatever the pros dub it, when we find ourselves being invited to, or perhaps even planning, such an event, we will need etiquette books. (Even though at least one member of the couple will be hard to offend.) I offer this excerpt from my upcoming guide "Dearly Beloved, Dearly Departed: Beautiful weddings for the vitally challenged."

"Invitations should be printed on the traditional heavy cream paper with a black border. The bride and groom are properly referred to thus: '[The bride's parents] request the pleasure of your company at the marriage of their daughter, Rose DeWitt Bukater, and the late Jack Dawson,' or, less traditionally, 'The pleasure of your company is requested at the marriage of Heathcliff and the late Catherine Earnshaw Linton. Reception to follow on the moors.'

"Exchanging of rings and vows -- well, exchanging of anything, really -- is problematic and best left out. The vows, particularly, will need to be extensively rewritten. 'In sickness and in health' may sound odd. And you'll want to skip the manifestly inaccurate 'Till death do us part.'

"Get a recently deceased groom's friends involved as both pallbearers and groomsmen. A groom who has been gone for some time can still be involved in the ceremony -- those daisies he's been pushing up would make a lovely bouquet!

"A considerate couple will make it clear to guests whether the mood of the ceremony is joyful or solemn, i.e., how much tulle vs. how much crepe! This will help them decide how to dress and whether to come to the reception bearing an envelope or a casserole.

"And remember, a 'Just Married' sign on the back of a hearse can easily be changed to read 'Just Buried.' "

Think it can't happen here? I'm not so sure. Ask not for whom the wedding bell tolls.