北宋大文豪歐陽脩,終身服膺儒家思想,強調仁義道德的發用。他的文筆,具備史家信實精神。他如何評述當代女性,是一個引人好奇深思的問題。考察歐陽脩記錄女性的作品,主要是以墓誌爲載體,評述女性的美德。在題材方面,歐陽脩寫出當時的女性侍奉公婆、佐助丈夫、教養子女、教化鄉里,稱許她們的品德表現有:孝、儉、勤,同時以「賢」字給予當代女性最高的評價,此外,也記錄了她們信佛的生活,以及身體健康狀態。在寫作範式方面,歐陽脩主要從兩個角度描寫女性,一是借他人之口說明,二是以親人的行爲襯托,其他偶見用朝廷封賞、或墓主自白的方式寫出。經由上述討論,更能理解北宋時期男性士大夫筆下的婦女生活樣貌,呈現了傳統儒家生命的思考面向。
Ouyang Xiu, a great writer in the Song Dynasty, admired Confucian throughout all his life and emphasized the application of morality. His writing has the spirit of faithfulness of a historian. His comment on contemporary women is a question that arouses curiosity and thought. The investigation of Ouyang Xiu's works recording women, he mainly based on the epitaphs. In terms of subject matter, Ouyang Xiu wrote about the women who served her parents-in-laws, assisted her husband, raised her children, and promote the educational work in villages. Praised their moral qualities such as filial piety, thrift, and diligence, and gave the highest evaluation with the word "virtuous". In addition, also recorded their life as a Buddhist believer and their physical health. In terms of writing paradigm, Ouyang Xiu mainly describes women from two perspectives, one is hear someone told, and the other is to use the behavior of relatives as auxiliary explanations, others are occasionally written in the form of a Court's reward or her own words. Through the above discussion, we can better understand the life appearance of women written by male scholars in the Song Dynasty, which presents the thinking aspect of traditional Confucianism.