In ancient funeral culture, the burial place and sacrifice after the death of family members are very particular. Those who have made contributions to the family can not only move into ancestral graves, but also have memorial tablets and ancestral temples for mourning. In the hierarchical feudal era, some identities could not be buried in ancestral graves, which was also closely related to feng shui fortune.
First of all, the first category is special professionals, such as actors, prostitutes, eunuchs, executioners and so on. The first two are due to the division of occupations. In ancient times, actors and prostitutes belonged to the lowest occupation, at the end of the lowest occupation, and their status was low. More importantly, many women who have become actresses and prostitutes have been sold or left their homes. They don't know where their relatives are, so they can't return to their motherland.
The eunuch was physically disabled and the executioner bled too much. The ancients thought that burying these two kinds of people in ancestral graves would damage the fortune of future generations. But if eunuchs have high power and status in the imperial court, which can be regarded as the glory of the family, then it can be another matter.
The second category is that the deceased are not allowed to enter the ancestral graves, such as suicide, dystocia and premature death. These people are regarded as "a worthy death". If they have land at home, they can be buried as tribunes, but not in ancestral graves. Suicide, in particular, was regarded as unfilial by the ancients. They disobeyed God's will and showed no respect for life. If buried in ancestral graves, it will destroy the feng shui of ancestors.
The third category is unmarried men and women. As the ancients said, "There are three kinds of unfilial, and there is no queen." People who have never been married and left no descendants are incomplete in the eyes of the ancients. There is a saying that "bachelor" enters the ancestral grave, and the family has been single for generations. Even in some strict places, childless couples will be regarded as unlucky and need to adopt a child from their side and bury it in their ancestral graves.
Unmarried women usually have another lonely grave. For example, Yan Lipin, a famous actor in Henan Opera, was buried in a solitary grave far from his ancestral grave because he was unmarried all his life. Sometimes, in order to avoid this phenomenon, the ancients held a "ghost wedding" to make the world complete after death. For example, there is a record in the Biography of Women in Yuanqu: "If a son dies without a wife, he will be buried with the bones of his dead wife."
Many of these customs are the dregs of culture, which is actually unfair to the deceased. Although everything is empty after death, returning to the hometown of relatives is probably everyone's ultimate wish. In ancient times, the hierarchical system was strict and people were unequal, which led to these so-called picky and superstitious. Fortunately, most of these habits have been eliminated now. After all, everyone has the right to rest in peace after death, no matter what his status was.