GMAT Reading Comprehension

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Source: GWD

Level: 3

In 1675, Louis XIV established the Parisian seamstresses' guild, the firstindependent all-female guild created in over 200 years. Guild members could make and sell women's and children's clothing, but were prohibited from producing men's clothing or dresses for court women. Tailors resented the ascension of seamstresses to guild status; seamstresses, meanwhile, were impatient with the remaining restrictions on their right to clothe women.

The conflict between the guilds was not purely economic, however. A 1675 police report indicated that since so many seamstresses were already working illegally, the tailors were unlikely to suffer additional economic damage because of the seamstresses' incorporation. Moreover, guild membership held very different meanings for tailors and seamstresses. To the tailors, their status as guild members overlapped with their role as heads of household, and entitled them to employ as seamstresses female family members who did not marry outside the trade. The seamstresses, however, viewed guild membership as a mark of independence from the patriarchal family. Their guild was composed not of family units but of individual women who enjoyed unusual legal and economic privileges. At the conflict's center was the issue of whether tailors' female relatives should be identified as family members protected by the tailors' guild or as individuals under the jurisdiction of the seam-stresses' guild.

Question List: 1 2 3 4

According to the passage, one source of dissatisfaction for Parisian seamstresses after the establishment of the seamstresses' guild was that

  • A seamstresses were not allowed to make and sell clothing for all women
  • B tailors continued to have the exclusive legal right to clothe men
  • C seamstresses who were relatives of tailors were prevented from becoming members of the seamstresses' guild
  • D rivalry between individual seamstresses increased, thus hindering their ability to compete with the tailors for business
  • E seamstresses were not allowed to accept male tailors as members of the guild

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