[Articles] Gender Research Using Northern Wei Epitaphs: Using the Epitaphs of Court Ladies as Clues

As of 2025, approximately 700 epitaphs from the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534) have been documented. These inscriptions are, of course, valuable for gaining a deeper understanding of Wei society and its social history. One particularly important application is in examining the construction of gender roles within this society and identifying instances of resistance to those constructed roles. I have previously extracted characteristic words from Northern Wei epitaphs for both men and women and conducted a semantic analysis. In the process, I observed that the characteristic words found in male epitaphs also appear in those of females. This paper aims to explore why this phenomenon occurs and what it signifies, thereby contributing to gender research based on Northern Wei epitaphs. The findings indicate that the use of words characteristic of male epitaphs was largely limited to those written for court ladies. It is likely that the authors of these particular epitaphs were also court ladies. In a society where discourse -- including literature -- is overwhelmingly shaped by male intellectuals, even the accomplishments of women must be expressed in masculine terms, regardless of whether the author herself is a woman.