2. 考研
  3. In large part as a consequence of the feminist movement, historians have focused a great deal of attention in recent years on de

In large part as a consequence of the feminist movement, historians have focused a great deal of attention in recent years on de

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问题    In large part as a consequence of the feminist movement, historians have focused a great deal of attention in recent years on determining more accurately the status of women in various periods. Although much has been accomplished for the modern period, premodern cultures have proved more difficult: sources are restricted in number, fragmentary, difficult to interpret, and often contradictory. Thus it is not particularly surprising that some earlier scholarship concerning such cultures has so far gone unchallenged. An example is Johanna Bachofen’s 1861 treatise on Amazons, women-ruled societies of questionable existence contemporary with ancient Greece.
   Starting from the premise that mythology and legend preserve at least a nucleus of historical fact, Ba-chofen argued that women were dominant in many ancient societies. His work was based on a comprehensive survey of references in the ancient sources to Amazonian and other societies with matrilineal customs—societies in which descent and property rights are traced through the female line. Some support for his theory can be found in evidence such as that drawn from Herodotus, the Greek "historian" of the fifth century B. C. , who speaks of an Amazonian society, the Sauromatae, where the women hunted and fought in wars. A woman in this society was not allowed to marry until she had killed a person in battle.
   Nonetheless, this assumption that the first recorders of ancient myths have preserved facts is problematic. If one begins by examining why ancients refer to Amazons, it becomes clear that ancient Greek descriptions of such societies were meant not so much to represent observed historical fact—real Amazonian societies—but rather to offer "moral lessons" on the supposed outcome of women’s rule in their own society. The Amazons were often characterized, for example, as the equivalents of giants and centaurs, enemies to be slain by Greek heroes. Their customs were presented not as those of a respectable society, but as the very antitheses of ordinary Greek practices.
   Thus, I would argue, the purpose of accounts of the Amazons for their male Greek recorders was didactic , to teach both male and female Greeks that all-female groups, formed by withdrawal from traditional society, are destructive and dangerous. Myths about the Amazons were used as arguments for the male-dominated status quo, in which groups composed exclusively of other sex were not permitted to segregate themselves permanently from society. Bachofen was thus misled in his reliance on myths for information about the status of women. The sources that will probably tell contemporary historians most about women in the ancient world are such social documents as gravestones, wills, and marriage contracts. Studies of such documents have already begun to show how mistaken we are when we try to derive our picture of the ancient world exclusively from literary sources, especially myths.
All of the following are stated by the author as problems connected with the sources for knowledge of premodern cultures EXCEPT______.
选项 A、partial completeness
B、restricted accessibility
C、difficulty of interpretation
D、limited quantity
答案B
解析 事实细节题。第一段第二句指出前现代文化研究存在的困难，即来源有限、不完整、难以解释且常常相互矛盾。[A]项、[C]项和[D]项与原文相符，故均排除；[B]项表述与原文不符，故为答案。
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