This practice is outdated and no longer in use because betrothed women who did not like their betrothed husbands deserted the marriage and absconded and sometimes committed suicide. The marriages of today are constructed between individual lovers who after falling into a relationship introduce the prospective spouses to their families for assessment and acceptance. Before marriage, the lady also usually visits the man's home temporary (to study and in turn, be assessed by the man's family) and later, permanently moves to the home when the marriage has been contracted. Christianity has influenced this modern trend in current marriage system among Bikpakpaam. Another prominent phenomenon that is waning in Bikpakpaam marriage system is polygyny. Formerly, a typical ukpakpanja could marry more than one wife, depending on his social and financial strength. Now due to Christianity, economic hardship, rivalry and modernity, the polygamy is fading out and most men now marry just one wife and a maximum of two except biborb (chiefs) who still marry many wives betrothed onto them by clans and well wishers. In a typical Bikpakpaam community today, one may still find cases where a woman may marry a relative of her deceased husband. Burial rites: Bikpakpaam traditionally bury their dead within a maximum of 24 hours post death (aside the recent introduction of keeping corpses in the morgue and burial with coffin). When a person, whether a child or an adult dies, messages such as verbal, horn/flute sound and explosive gunpowder (for older people) are sent to neighbors in the surrounding communities and to relatives far and near. For adult men and women (married and having children), kinachung always accompanies the burial services. Infants, children and adolescents receive a similar burial without kinachung and, many a time, without a coffin. The deceased is laid in state and burial rites are performed. There is mourning (ikpowiil), ikpolahn (dirges), njeem, etc. based on the cause of death or status of the deceased. The corpse is bathed by a large number of women, dressed and may be coffined. The corpse (coffined or not) is carried by men on the shoulder or head and one of the traditional priest invokes ancestral spirits to identify the cause of death. The corpse is then sent to the gravesite, which is usually in front of the house for adults and far away from home for kids and adolescents.