PrepTest 103

[lcid:3511] Prep Test 103 LSAT — Reading Comp — S4 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 22-27  .        In England before 1660, a husband controlled his  . wife's property. In the late seventeenth and Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Legal


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Susan Staves contends that, contrary to the traditional view that women in England gained property rights after 1660 through marriage contracts, their rights were soon undermined by judges.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Before 1660 in England, husbands controlled their wives’ property (first sentence)
    • A change took place in late 1600s and early 1700s whereby marriages were accompanied by contracts (second sentence)
      • Old Approach/traditional historical interpretation: this represented a major gain for women as notions of democracy and property rights became more widespread (third sentence)
    • Susan Staves: this change did not represent as large a gain for women as is traditionally thought, because any gains women made through marriage contracts were quickly taken away by judicial decisions (fourth sentence)
    • Author’s attitude: “traditionally argued’ (third sentence); “represented a gain” (third sentence); “contests this view” (fourth sentence); “whatever gains” (fourth sentence); “undermined” (fourth sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Staves argues that changes in favor of women were only superficial; in practice, even new contractual concepts were interpreted in the courts in favor of men, and women gained little, if at all.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Staves contends any changes in favor of women were superficial: such changes included rhetoric and occasional pro-women judicial decisions (first sentence)
    • Staves: property rights remained unequal and weighted in favor of men (first sentence)
      • Dower lands (inherited by wives) could not be sold, but curtesy lands (inherited by husbands) could (second sentence)
      • New contractual concepts like jointure, pin money, and separate maintenance were interpreted in favor of men (third sentence)
        • Pin money: if a woman spent pin money (allowance given by husband to wife for personal purchases) on items other than clothes, couldn’t sell them (fourth sentence)
          • Wife could sue for pin money up to a year in arrears, which took away the incentive to file suit in the first place (fifth sentence)
        • Separate maintenance: sum of money for wife’s support if couple lived separately; courts didn’t recognize a couple’s trying to agree on an amount in a marriage contract because marriage couldn’t be dissolved (sixth sentence)
      • Historians of 1700s dismissed these problems (seventh sentence)
      • Staves: judges gained ascendancy over how these contractual provisions worked in practice and interpreted them in accordance with pre-1660 notions of property (eighth sentence)
      • Author’s attitude: “tangled details” (first sentence); “despite surface changes” (first sentence); “remained inconsistent” (first sentence); “to women’s detriment” (first sentence); “compromised” (third sentence); “complicated” (sixth sentence); “underplayed” (seventh sentence); “gained power” (eighth sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Staves' research illuminates other topics related to women in 1700s England.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Staves contends that separate maintenance allowances didn’t necessarily indicate that the patriarchal system was weakening (second sentence)
    • Staves challenges view of Jeanne and Lawrence Stone that in the late 1700s, wealthy men married widows less often because people began marrying for love rather than money (third sentence)
      • Staves counters the Stones’ assumption that widows had more money than never-married women, because jointure property (money specified in a marriage contract that could be used by a widow during her lifetime) was lost if she remarried (fourth-fifth sentences)
    • Author’s attitude: “general implications” (first sentence); “Staves revises” (second sentence); “oversimplification: (second sentence); “challenges” (third sentence); “counter their assumption” (fourth sentence); “often lost” (fifth sentence)

Main Point: Susan Staves contends that whatever property rights English women may have gained in the late 1600s and 1700s through the rise of certain provisions in marriage contracts were quickly damaged by reactionary judicial interpretations of those contracts.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 2 (P1 S2) - Topic of passage

P1 S2 - Old approach

P1 S3 - New approach

P2 S1 - Summary of evidence for new approach

P3 S1 - Wider implications of new approach

Meta-Structure?

Old Approach/New Approach: This passage uses an Old Approach/New Approach Meta-Structure. The author first describes the view traditionally held by historians that the emergence of marriage contracts in England in the late 1600s and 1700s led to an advancement of women’s rights through more enlightened treatment of their property in the legal system. This view we may think of as the “old approach.” The passage then summarizes Susan Staves' view of this historical development: it did not represent the dramatic sea change that is usually thought in the field of women’s rights. Indeed, Staves argues, whatever property rights women gained on paper were soon diminished once judges began interpreting the contracts in accordance with the earlier notion that women’s property rights should be inferior to men’s. This is what we may think of as the “new approach.” The passage then points out that Staves' work on property rights sheds light on other areas of women’s lives in 1700s England.

Last Thoughts?

This passage has been classified as Old Approach/New Approach rather than Criticizing a Viewpoint, Rebutting Critics, or Correcting the Record because the author seems to endorse Staves' view of history, which provides a “new approach” to the topic of how marriage contracts impacted women’s lives in England in the 1700s. The views that Staves is rebutting are not critical views, but rather, established views, so it is not properly classified as Rebutting Critics. And, while this passage can nearly be considered a Correcting the Record passage because it describes a common misconception, there is enough emphasis on how the views Staves criticizes are “traditional” and rooted in the writings of eighteenth-century historians to classify them as “old” views, which plays to the Old Approach/New Approach time element.

Question prompt

According to the passage, Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Legal

Strategy Overview

Refer to notes or what you highlighted/underlined to locate where the passage discusses the effect of Staves’ research on the Stones’ contention about marriage in late eighteenth-century England, and refer to the relevant part of the passage as needed to find that answer choice that must be true.

Answer Anticipation

For questions that ask us to find a specific detail mentioned in the passage, quickly finding and reviewing that piece of information is paramount. That is why we make brief notes describing the role of each paragraph and highlight or underline definitions and the minor Meta-Structures — doing so helps us find the salient information efficiently and reliably. Once we review that part of the passage, we can look through the answer choices to see which one is best supported by what we reviewed.Here, the question asks about the effect of Staves’ research on the Stones’ contention about marriage in late eighteenth-century England. This topic shows up in P3 S3-5, where the author writes that the Stones believe wealthy men married widows less often than before because they were marrying for love rather than money. Staves’ research, the author writes, challenges the Stones’ assumption that widows had more money than never-married women (P3 S4). Because certain contractual provisions in marriage agreements dictated that widows’ jointure property was forfeit if they remarried (P3 S5), widows may not have been richer than never-married women, and the fact that wealthy men married widows less often doesn’t necessarily imply they were marrying for love.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Staves' research undermines one Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem

    (A) Does this answer choice indicate how Staves’ research about the potential forfeiture of jointure property affected the Stones’ contention that wealthy men married widows less often because couples were marrying for love rather than money?

    Yes. Because the Stones’ argument is predicated on the fact that widows were wealthier than never-married women, and Staves’ research into the fate of jointure property undermines this assumption (P3 S4), this answer choice is correct. The fact that Staves undermines the Stones’ assumption does not mean their argument is invalid (i.e. that couples were not marrying more often for love rather than money), but it does serve to cast some doubt on it.

    Also, this answer choice is a paraphrase of P3 S4, which states that Staves “does not completely undermine [the Stones’] contention, but she does counter their assumption that widows had more money than never-married women.”

    Thus, we can be doubly sure that (A) is the correct answer.

  2. B
    Staves' research refutes the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this answer choice indicate how Staves’ research about the potential forfeiture of jointure property affected the Stones’ contention that wealthy men married widows less often because couples were marrying for love rather than money?

    No. Though Staves does bring in information about the fate of jointure property in marriage contracts, her research does not refute the Stones’ contention that couples were marrying for love rather than money more often than before (P3 S4). In fact, this answer choice contradicts the language of the passage, which says that “Staves does not completely undermine [the Stones’] contention” (P3 S4). This answer choice says Staves’ research does. So we can be sure this is not the right answer.

  3. C
    Staves' research shows that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this answer choice indicate how Staves’ research about the potential forfeiture of jointure property affected the Stones’ contention that wealthy men married widows less often because couples were marrying for love rather than money?

    No. P3 S4 states that Staves “does not completely undermine [the Stones’] contention” not that her research shows it cannot be correct. Furthermore, she shows that one of their assumptions is mistaken (that widows had more money than never-married women, P3 S4), not that “a number of their assumptions are mistaken.”

  4. D
    Staves' research indicates that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this answer choice indicate how Staves’ research about the potential forfeiture of jointure property affected the Stones’ contention that wealthy men married widows less often because couples were marrying for love rather than money?

    No. P3 S4 states that Staves “does not completely undermine [the Stones’] contention,” not that her research shows their contention is incorrect. Also, there is no mention of contradictory data in the third paragraph.

    This answer choice is inaccurate.

  5. E
    Staves' research qualifies the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this answer choice indicate how Staves’ research about the potential forfeiture of jointure property affected the Stones’ contention that wealthy men married widows less often because couples were marrying for love rather than money?

    No. Staves’ research casts doubt on the Stones’ contention by undermining one of their assumptions (P3 S4); it does not “qualify” their research. Also, the author does not mention that Staves shows the Stones’ contention is based on accurate but incomplete data. In fact, Staves brings up a point that is presumably overlooked entirely by the Stones’ research: the potential forfeiture of jointure property under marriage contracts after 1660. If such property was forfeit upon a widow’s remarriage, there is no reason to suppose she would be richer than a never-married woman (P3 S4). Thus, there is no evidence to suggest that the Stones’ research was accurate at all.

What this tests

Discussion

  • Concerning A 1 reply

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  • Why C? 1 reply

    Started by Marissa-Avnaim

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