Overt and Covert Treasures: Essays on the Sources for Chinese Women’s History

6. Women in Portraits: An Overview of Epitaphs from Early and Medieval China

Women in Portraits: An Overview of Epitaphs from Early and Medieval China Ping Yao As scholars have become more aware of the limitations of “standard histories” and didactic texts, epitaphs have increasingly been considered useful sources for studying women in imperial China. Epitaphs seemingly provide us with a rich pool of raw data, filled with concrete demographic numbers and idealized gender roles and life courses. Since the late 1970s, quite a few historians have made use of epitaphs in their investigation of women, marriage and the family in particular periods of Chinese history. In view of this, an examination of the origin and development of epitaphs is in order, to achieve a better understanding of the nature and the limitation of this fascinating collection of sources. In this paper, I survey roughly eleven hundred epitaphs from the Han to the Sui period1 and over six thousand epitaphs from the Tang dynasty.2 My goals are to investigate what demographic information these epitaphs can provide, and to determine in what way the nature of epitaph writing changed over time. It seems that a gradual transformation of the nature and function of epitaphs began in the late sixth century and was completed in the ninth century. Throughout the process, epitaphs became both personalized and ritualized: epitaph writing became a tool for expressing personal feelings toward the deceased, as well as a crucial component of funeral ritual for the living to display their ethical and moral standing, and their social status. I am hoping that a fuller grasp of the changing nature and function of epitaphs will enable us to produce a more accurate and more nuanced analysis of women in Chinese history. THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF EPITAPHS What makes an epitaph (muzhi 墓誌)? When did epitaphs first appear in Chinese history? Both questions are much debated. Historians and 158 | Overt and Covert Treasures archaeologists generally agree that in Chinese tradition, an epitaph was carved onto a stone (or tile) and buried underground on top of a coffin, and that it provides information about the dead. However, there is a difference between zhimu 誌墓 (identifying the tomb) and muzhi, the main purpose of which was to zhiren 誌人 (commemorate the person).3 Zhimu inscriptions that were buried with the dead appeared as early as the Qin dynasty.4 The earliest surviving zhimu texts for women are probably inscriptions discovered in a group of tombs for convicts of the Eastern Han. The tombs date from between 62 and 172.5 The earliest muzhi inscription, however, is the “Jia Wuzhong qi Ma Jiang muzhi” 賈 武仲妻馬姜墓誌, dated the tenth day of the ninth month, first year of the Yanping 延平 reign (106). Discovered in 1929 in Luoyang, the epitaph not only provides biographical information about Ma Jiang 馬姜, but also praises her virtue. It reads: On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, in the seventh year of the Yongping reign [58–75], Jia Wuzhong, the fifth son of General of the Left and Lord Specially Advanced Jiaodong, Duke of the Han Dynasty, died.6 He was then twenty-nine years of age. His wife, Ma Jiang, was the daughter of Fubo General, who was also the Duke of Xinxi and Zhongcheng,7 and the older sister of the Mingde Empress. She gave birth to four daughters. At the age of twenty-three, Mr. Jia Wuzhong died. Lady Ma resolutely held to the lofty principle of chastity and toiled diligently for years. She raised her daughters well and glorified the ancestors. Two daughters were elevated to be consorts in the Xian […] jie8 Palace, another was married to the Duke of Ting, surnamed Zhu, and yet another was married to the Duke of Yanggao, surnamed Liu. Reds and purples adorned them profusely,9 and royal favors and ranks filled the house. This was all because of The Lady […]. With her motherly virtues, The Lady […] protected the entire clan. At the age of seventy-three, [she passed away] on the […] day of the seventh month, the first year of the Yanping reign [106]. The emperor paid his condolences, the two palaces […]. Imperial items were granted [to be used for the funeral] in accordance with the rites. She was [then] buried on the tenth day of the ninth month at the old cemetery in Mangmen […]. Her descendents feared not being able to make her virtues known and thus carved this on the stone to record … 惟永平七年七月廿一日，漢左將軍特進膠東侯第五子賈武仲卒，時年廿 九。夫人馬姜，伏波將軍新息忠成侯之女，明德皇后之姊也。生四女。年 廿三，而賈君卒，夫人深守高節，劬勞歷載，育成幼媛，光□祖先，遂升 Women in Portraits: An Overview of...