Journal paper

Issue No.	No. 58
Title	Married Couples Joint Burial Epitaphs in Late Imperial China
Author	Yi, Jo-lan
Page	51-90
Abstract	Entombed epitaph inscriptions (muzhiming 墓誌銘), which brought life writings into the open for discussion, began to circulate widely during the Ming dynasty, thanks to the flourishing of printed material and the wide circulation of literary collections. Many scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to studying muzhiming in recent years; but very little attention has been paid to examining them from the perspective of gender. This paper seeks to redress the balance by examining husband-wife joint burial entombed epitaph inscriptions from the Ming and Qing periods. It finds that during the Ming dynasty many muzhiming stressed loving relations between husband and wife and compliance with “description matching reality.” This contrasted sharply with scholars of the early Qing dynasty who criticized the usage of “and his spouse nèe such-and-such” to address the wife within titles of Ming muzhiming. This remarkable difference suggests that scholars of the Qing dynasty were beholden to the ancient notion that women should not be discussed or written about in public.
Keyword	: joint burial epitaph of husband and wife, gender, life writing
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