Sudanese goat marriage incident

Rose was a goat from the Hai Malakal suburb of Juba, the capital of the Sudanese region of South Sudan, who became an internet phenomenon when a local man was caught by the goat's owner having sex with the goat. The owner subdued the perpetrator and asked village elders to come over. One elder noted that he and the other elders found the perpetrator, tied up by the owner, at the door of the goat shed. The goat's owner reported that, "They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife." The perpetrator was thus ordered to 'marry' the goat, pay the cost of the goat and pay a 15,000-dinar dowry (roughly US$75), with half of the dowry up front.

The goat apparently acquired the name "Rose" during the elders' deliberations as part of a joke.

The story, first published on 24 February 2006 on the BBC website, attracted massive attention and was republished on numerous newspapers, blogs and other websites. Even a year after publication, the story was consistently among the BBC's 10 most emailed articles, with many visitors to the BBC news site finding the tale amusing and passing it onto friends. The story received over 100,000 hits on five successive days long after its original publication, and was read by millions of people. The BBC, astonished at this popularity, wondered if there was a campaign to keep the tale at the top of its rankings; however, an investigation by its senior software engineer, Gareth Owen, determined that the demand was genuine.

Death

On May 3 2007 it was reported that the goat had died, having choked on a plastic bag. The goat was survived by a four-month old male kid, who was not fathered by the goat's husband. The BBC honoured the animal with a mock obituary. The death was also reported in many other news outlets, including The Times, the Daily Mail, and Fox News.

See also

• Human-animal marriage