Memorial Gate for the Chaste Widow 旌表貞節之門 (Text)

Memorial Gate for the Chaste Widow 旌表貞節之門

Grand-grand nephew, Investigating Censor of Jiangxi Province, Lu Ge (盧格, 15th gen., 1450-1516)

Establishes [this Memorial Gate] in Commemoration of The Wife of my Grand-grand Uncle, Lady Hu.

(Located in front of “Memorial Arch for the Grand Master”)

* Hu De 胡德 (1362-1442) married Lu Wenweng (盧文翁, 12th gen., 1361-1385) and gave birth to a son but this son died young. When her husband died in 1385, she was only around 23 years old. But she did not remarry. Instead she lived as a chaste widow and died 57 years later at the age of 80. In 1468, 26 years after her death, an unnamed official submitted a memorial requesting official recognition of her virtue and the court agreed to the request.