Sui Dynasty Epitaph To See Female Characters In The Story And Its Female Concept

On the ground of studying more than 500 tombstone inscriptions of Sui Dynasty, the author excerpts and looks into the quoted stories about ancient female figures, finding out the source of each so as to unfold the deep significance of the quoted stories in the Sui tombstone inscriptions in reference to the reference literatures, namely, the ideal expectancy to the family-role of a female in the Sui Dynasty. Since most Sui tombstone inscriptions are about married females, whose major social activities are confined within the scope of the extended family, the main-stream conception, embodied in these inscriptions, inherits the traditional Chinese convention, in which it concentrates on keeping the family harmony and the versatility, virtue and purity of the female, as well as on the respect for the elderly, the obedience to her husband, and the nurturing of the children. There is up to now no existent literature on the quoted stories in the Sui tombstone inscriptions. The present thesis thus explores the quoted stories in the Sui tombstone inscriptions so as to uncover the embedded coincidences and characteristics among these tombstone quotations. Further discussions will be focused on the female conceptions and attitudes during the Sui period, as a new perspective of the research on female in the Sui Dynasty.The whole thesis is divided into two main parts.Part I presents the classification and clarification of the collected quoted stories about female figures appeared in the Sui tombstone inscriptions, and chronologically catalogues them under the three historic periods, namely, the period pre-Qin Dynasty, the period from Qin to Han Dynasty, and the period from the Three-kingdom-era to Jin Dynasty. The author concludes five common characteristics based on an overall demonstration and exploration of the sources and transmission of these quoted female figures, specifically, (1) having a plain reference; (2) most figures being sourced from Biography of the renowned females(LieNu Zhuan) and Biography of the renowned females in the book History of the Latter-Han Dynasty; (3) the stories being embedded in the antithesis expressions; (4) there being no fixed structures for the allusive quotations; (5) close relationship being found between the quotations and the referred female's social status. The analysis supposes to connect the underlying meaning of these quotations to the social-cultural milieu in Sui Dynasty. PartⅡis entitled the female figures' stories and the female conceptions in the Sui tombstone inscriptions. In the background of traditional Chinese culture, these allusive quotations emerged and transmitted in form of different literatures. The differences of ancient Dynasties and their main-stream thought and cultural features in turn endowed the quotations new cultural characteristics, which calls for the exploration of cultural and social implications as another aspect of the study of these quotations. PartⅡtherefore attempts to discover the social expectancy in Sui Dynasty toward the female on morality and others. Having classified, demonstrated and analysed the quotations about female figures appeared in the tombstone inscriptions by means of interactive testification of the ancient literatures and the tombstone inscriptions, the author consequently draws the conclusion that the allusions embodied in the Sui tombstone female stories accord to the main-stream attitude toward female in ancient feudal times. And the following aspects are especially highlighted, including well-literacy, graceful manner and good handicraft, being a merciful mother, and showing respect and keeping loyalty to husband. The major reason lies in that most female described in the tombstone inscriptions were married, and in addition, the "obedience"---requirement that females should keep order with their family--- restricts their ideal expectancy and further the evolution of female conception.