PT103.S4.P4.Q23

PrepTest 103 - Section 4 - Passage 4 - Question 23

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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.
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Historians' perspective · Contract aspect of marriage was a gain for women
It reflected changing views about democracy and property after 1660.
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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.
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Staves' support 2 · New legal concepts in connection with marriage contracts were unfair to women
Examples: certain limits on pin money and maintenance allowances.
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Historians' response · These problems were minor and would disappear soon
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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.
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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
Show answer
23.

Which one of the following ████ █████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █ ██████

a

It suggests that ███████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████ ███████████ ████████ ██ ████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ██████████████████ ████████

Unsupported— too strong. Staves’ work does have “general implications for other studies about women in eighteenth-century England,” but we don’t know if it’s caused significant revision of other theories.

17%
b

It discusses research ████ ███ ███████ ███████ ████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ ██████████████████ ████████

P3 discusses how Staves’ work affects other research on women in 18th-century England. (B) gets this backward.

6%
c

It provides further ███████ ███ ███████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ ██████████████████ ████████

P3 doesn’t provide any more support for Staves’ argument. Instead, it discusses how her argument affects other research on women in 18th-century England.

15%
d

It asserts that ███████ ██████ ████ ███ ████████ ███████ ███ ███ █████ ██████████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ██ ██████████████████ ████████

Anti-supported. P3 suggests that Staves’ recent work undermines two other hypotheses about women in 18th-century England. It caused her to revise her own previous view, and to challenge an assumption underlying the Stones’ view.

5%
e

It suggests the ████████████ ███████ ██████ ████████ ███ ███ █████ ████████ █████ █████ ██ ██████████████████ ████████

This accurately describes the function of P3. We see here that Staves’ recent work has implications for other theories about women in 18th-century England: it caused her to revise her own previous view, and to challenge an assumption underlying the Stones’ view.

58%

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