T'ao Liu Shih, daughter of Liu Fang-ch'ing, was betrothed to one T'ao, but they were not married. T'ao died. When the death was announced to her she hanged herself. [To appreciate the significance of this act it should be remembered that there was no question of love-sickness: the young couple in all probability had never spoken to or even seen each other. As will be understood from explanations already given,[176] the girl would as a matter of course be buried with her betrothed as his wife, and would be given his name on the tombstone and the ancestral tablets. Probably the youth's parents, in this as in most similar cases, adopted a son for the dead couple; if so he would be brought up to regard them as his father and mother, and would inherit their property. Had the girl refrained from suicide and married some one else, the family of the first betrothed might have provided him with a dead wife, in accordance with the practice already described.[177]] Chang Sun Shih, aged twenty-six, was the wife of Chang Ch'ing-kuang. On the death of her husband she took an oath to follow him. The family forcibly prevented her from killing herself. She pretended to submit to life and to the rearing of her young child, so gradually the family forbore to watch her. She then suddenly hanged herself. Li Chu Shih, aged twenty-one, was the wife of Li T'ing-lun. Her husband died, leaving her without children. She killed herself by jumping into a well. A stone memorial to her is extant. Ch'ên Yang Shih was the wife of Ch'ên Yüan-fu. On the death of her husband she starved herself to death. Pi Yü Shih, wife of Pi Ch'ang-jên, hanged herself by the side of her husband's coffin. [Voluntary death beside the coffin is exceedingly common and seems to represent an ancient custom.] Chang T'ang Shih was the wife of Chang Ching-wên. On her husband's death she devoted herself to bringing up a young daughter. She preserved a chaste widowhood till the death of her daughter, and then hanged herself. Pi Chang Shih was the wife of Pi Hung-fan. Her husband when dying gave instructions that as she was still young a second marriage was to be arranged for her. To please him she said she would obey him. They were childless. When he died her first action was to see that her late husband was duly provided with an heir and successor, and she did this by bringing about the formal adoption of one of his nephews. She then proceeded to arrange a marriage for the nephew so that the eventual continuation of the family might be properly provided for. "Now," she said, "my duty is done. What is a lonely widow to go on living for?" She then committed suicide.