Self-study
P1
In England before 1660, a husband controlled his wife's property. ██ ███ ████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ████ ██████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ████████ █████ ██ ███████████ ███████ ████████ ██ █ █████████ ███
Intro topic / historical context ·
In late 17th and 18th centuries, marriage in England had features of a contract
Before 1660, husbands controlled wives' property. Implication that this changed after marriage started to become like a contract.
Historians' perspective ·
Contract aspect of marriage was a gain for women
It reflected changing views about democracy and property after 1660.
Staves' perspective ·
Judicial decisions undermined any gains from marriage contracts
P2
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Staves' support 1 ·
Definitions of men's and women's property was harmful to women
Example: property inherited by wives after husbands' death couldn't be sold. But property inherited by men from wives could be sold.
Staves' support 2 ·
New legal concepts in connection with marriage contracts were unfair to women
Examples: certain limits on pin money and maintenance allowances.
Historians' response ·
These problems were minor and would disappear soon
Staves' response ·
Judges fell back to pre-1660 assumptions about property
P3
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Implication of Staves' work 1 ·
Staves has changed her view on whether separate maintenance allowances were good for women
Before, she said they were good. Now, she thinks that's oversimplified.
Implication of Staves' work 2 ·
Challenges an assumption underlying Stones' view
Stones argued that in late 18th century, wealthy men married widows less often than they used to, because more people started to marry for love rather than for financial reasons. Staves counters the assumption that widows had more money than non-widows.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
22.
Which one of the following ████ █████████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ███ ████████
a
As notions of ████████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██ ████ ████████████ ███ ██████████████████ ████████ ████████ ███████████ █████ ██ ███████████ ███████████ ████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ████████ ███████
Marriages did begin to incorporate contractual features in the late 17th and 18th centuries. The historians think that these features were a gain for women, but the main idea of the passage is a criticism of the historians’ perspective. The author uses Staves’ perspective to argue that the contractual features did not actually protect women’s rights in practice.
b
Traditional historians have ███████████ ██████████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ████ ████ ████████████ ████ ████████ █████████ ██ ████ ████████████ ███ ██████████████████ ████████
Unsupported. Staves doesn’t say that the historians incorrectly identified the contractual features of marriages. Instead, she argues that they're wrong to say that these features benefited women, since judicial decisions undermined any gains from marriage contracts.
c
The incorporation of ███████████ ████████ ████ ████████ ███████████ ██ ████ ████████████ ███ ██████████████████ ███████ ███ ███ █████████ █ ███████████ ████ ███ ██████
The main idea of the passage is to criticize the historians’ perspective that the contractual features of marriages represented a gain for women. The author uses
d
An examination of ████ ████████████ ███ ██████████████████ ███████ █████ █████ █████████ ████ ████ ████████ ███████████ ███ ███ ███████████ ███████████ ████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ████████ ███████
Unsupported. Staves never suggests that marriages did not incorporate contractual features. She just argues that these features— whether they were intended to protect women’s property rights or not— did not actually represent a gain for women.
e
Before marriage settlements ████████████ ███████████ ████████ ██████████ ███████ ████████ ███████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ███ █████████ █████ ██ ████████
Unsupported— too strong. The author never says that women couldn’t gain any financial power before marriages incorporated contractual features. Instead, he uses Staves’ perspective to argue that the contractual features did not actually represent a gain for women.