Wives and concubines in Song and Yuan funerary
inscriptions
（Abstract）
Beverly Bossler
Chinese historical sources for the lives of women, and for the personal lives of
men, are sparse at best. One of the most useful repositories of information about
women and family life are funerary biographies. Although funerary biographies
were meant to praise and honor the deceased, and therefore are of limited usefulness
as biographies per se, they frequently reveal important information about family
structure, living arrangements, and interpersonal relations. This paper uses funerary
inscriptions of both men and women to examine the changing roles of wives and
concubines in Chinese families from the Song to Yuan periods.