TALES OF THE 24 EXEMPLARS: LADY TANG

LADY TANG NURSING HER MOTHER-IN-LAW WITH BREAST MILK

In the Tang Dynasty, there lived a court official, Mr Tswei, whose great-grandmother had lost all her teeth and could not chew even soft rice. Eating was a big problem. Mr. Tswei's grandmother, the Lady Tang, realized the difficulty her mother-in law had in chewing food, and in order to sustain the old lady, Lady Tang would wake up each morning and feed her breast-milk from her own body. The elderly matron had no trouble digesting this nutrition and managed to live to a ripe old age.  

What bothers me about this story is that Lady Tang herself was already a grandmother to an official of the Imperial court and even if she married in her early teens, she'd need to be at least 53 to get an adult grandchild.  Another questionable thing about the story is how on earth could she manage to have breast milk for so many years to sustain the old lady.  She needs to have given birth in order to produce breast milk.  No wonder the stories in The 24 Exemplars were met with scorn by the Chinese intellects of that time.