Note 4 — Chapter IV · Liao Yang
Reading edition
Dr. Arthur Smith, the well-known authority on Chinese customs, told me that the reason for the non-burial of children in China is due to the fact that they are not recognised as an integral part of the family till after marriage. Consequently it is not uncommon to marry them after death, in order to be able to give them an adopted son to perpetuate the family, and to offer worship at the ancestral shrine. In one case of which he knew, the corpse of the bride was carried with great pomp to the village where the bridegroom had lived, and they were both buried together.