My mother died and my father had an ex-wife. How can they be buried together?

in the headline of "phoenix playing under the plane tree", I talked about the relationship between age and funeral (see the article "In the past, people were most concerned about this age, and before this age, they could not buy longevity materials and could not be called the end of their lives"). This article talks about the performance and stress of gender in funeral.

(Ancient Funeral, Stills)

As for the social roles of men and women, China people still think that "men and women are different". Of course, this is not a physiological difference, but a social division of labor and status difference. This was particularly clear in the past funerals, which paid attention to "humble but not respectful" and "men left and women right"-this is a basic principle and rule of male and female burial, which still exists today.

It means that if the husband of one spouse dies first, the grave can't be opened casually after the wife dies in the future. When buried together, the female coffin should be placed on the right side of the male coffin, because the left is the top, which is the position of honour.

In the funeral, even if you are the queen, you are in a "humble" position. If the emperor dies first, then the queen who died later will have no chance to be buried in the same cave, and the underground palace of the Mausoleum can no longer be opened-although there are examples of the queen who died later, it is not a common practice. For example, Wu Zetian died after her death, and insisted on being buried with her husband, Emperor Li Zhi, in Ganling. As a son, Tang Zhongzong Li Xian made an exception to satisfy her mother's dying wishes, regardless of the opposition of the courtiers.

By the way, why did Wu Zetian insist on being buried with Li Zhi? Some said that Wu Zetian was infatuated with Li Zhi, "sharing the same room before death, sharing the same point after death". More importantly, she once usurped Li Tang Jiangshan, established a "Big Week" country, and finally went to the country to go to the number. The burial showed that she was still the Li family's daughter-in-law, which was a sign of submission.

If we analyze Wu Zetian's request for joint burial from the perspective of conspiracy theory, this is not the case. If Wu Zetian is buried alone, instead of being buried with Li Zhi, her mausoleum will probably be stripped in the future, including her own son and daughter. She killed many descendants of Li and ministers who opposed her before her death. If you choose to be buried with Li Zhi, Li's descendants and other enemies will not dare to move!

Whether Wu Zetian asked to be buried with Li Zhi after her death or not, it is certain that this is a special case.

According to Confucianism, women are "hanging by a thread, and they are puzzled by death" to men, that is, "marrying a husband", which is more vividly said by the people, that is, "marry a chicken with a chicken, marry a dog with a dog, and marry a shoulder pole to carry away".

In the past, married women had to be chaste for men, and even if they died, they could not be touched by other men. You can even die to keep your virginity. Biography of Women in the Ming Dynasty records a "heroic woman" surnamed Xu who was snatched away by a rogue and tried to commit adultery. This woman threw herself into the pool in the dead of night and salvaged it and found that "the clothes were sewn up and down without an inch".

(still photos of ancient couples)

There is a saying in The Book of Rites: A Memoir of Mourning that "women don't die at the hands of men". What do you mean? Just don't let a man hold his limbs and die when he dies. In the Ming Dynasty, there was a woman named Chen in Anlu today. She was widowed and childless in her early years, and then she went back to her mother's house and stayed in a small building for 3 years, never coming out. When she died, she told her maid: "When I die, be careful not to seduce me with a man", which means that after death, don't let a man carry her body down.

The family didn't listen to her and asked the man to go upstairs. As a result, Chen, who had died, suddenly sat up: "What did I say at first, but now I am here!" Everyone was shocked. After all the men went downstairs, Chen Nucai closed her eyes!

this matter can be found in Biography of Women in Ming Dynasty. At the same time, there was a martyr named Sun, whose husband hanged himself after his death. Before he died, he wrote eight words on his belt: "Men are not allowed to take a corpse, and women are not allowed to undress"-stick to the etiquette of "Women are not allowed to die at the hands of men".

(clothes)

The above is the first procedure in the funeral-the female requirements in the "initial and final" customs.

One of the most core funeral procedures-"joint burial" pays the most attention to the dead women.

A woman has a family because she got married before her death, but after her death, she is also "successful because of her husband" and "positive". The custom of husband and wife being buried together appeared in the pre-Qin and Zhou Dynasties. There is a poem "Cart" in The Book of Songs, in which there is a sentence: "You are different rooms, and death is the same point." It means that you can't live in the same room before you die, hoping to be buried in a pit after you die, which is the reflection of the custom of joint burial in literary works at that time.

This is a woman's confession of love to a man. She is afraid that the man will not believe it, and she says, "It's like a bright day to refuse to believe it." It means that if you don't believe what I say, let the sun testify.

Later, when husband and wife were buried together, it became a popular custom in funerals.

A marriage tragedy occurred during the reign of Emperor Xian of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Jiao Zhongqing and Liu Lanzhi, who were congenial to each other, were forced to separate and both committed suicide. This is the story told in Peacock Flying Southeast, the first long narrative poem in the history of China literature. After death, "the two families seek to be buried together, and they are buried next to Huashan Mountain."

(The husband and wife are buried together in the tomb found in archaeology, and the first cave is a small wife's tomb)

In order to be buried with their husbands, some wives even buried their husbands as martyrs. In some places, there is also the burial custom of "stopping the coffin and wife's room". For example, in Pingyang, Zhejiang Province (including part of Cangnan today), this phenomenon existed in the past.

In Pingyang in the past, if the husband and wife died first, they could be carried out and buried. But if you die first, you will be in big trouble. You have to leave the coffin at home for a while, and after a few years, the woman will also die, and then they will be carried out together. Some women have been waiting for decades because they lost their husbands early, and they are accompanied by the bones of their dead husbands all day long.

(Life-saving materials at home are used for female funerals)

Some people put the coffin of their deceased husband on their wife's bed. Due to the poor conditions of most of these families, the coffin boards used are very thin, commonly known as "thin-skinned coffins", because the bodies rot, blood seeps out and stinks. Those who are not girls die of diseases, while those who are timid are scared out of mental illness.

why is there the custom of "leaving the coffin and the wife"? It is also a reflection of the inequality between men and women in the funeral. In many places in the past, a widowed man can remarry, but a widowed woman is not allowed to remarry. Therefore, the dead husband should be "around" to take care of the living wife. Fortunately, this custom is gone now.

(Funeral)

Joint burial is a requirement for the funeral of married women. What if unmarried women? Generally, they should also be buried together-find an unmarried man who knows or doesn't know, and bury them together. This is called "marriage mourning", commonly known as "looking for a ghost husband" and "marrying a relative", and is generally called "ghost marriage".

ghost marriage, a vulgar custom, appeared in the pre-Qin period. If men and women were lovers before their death, they really realized the wish of "being born in a different room and dying in the same cave". But in most cases, it is impossible. "Death is the same point" is not all the pursuit of love between men and women before death, but the need of funeral customs, so it is not advocated by the government. According to "Zhou Li Di Guan", "it is forbidden to move the buried and marry the mourners", but there are prohibitions, and this phenomenon has occasionally occurred so far.

The old idea that women are men's subordinates is still reflected in modern funerals, but it is no longer so obvious-men and women should be equal in funerals!