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Source: 91年

In The Women of Mexico City,1796-1857, Sylvia Marina Arrom argues that the status on women in Mexico City improved during the nineteenth century.According to Arrom, households headed by females and instances of women working outside the home were much more common than scholars have estimated; efforts by the Mexican government to encourage female education resulted in increased female literacy; and influential male writers wrote pieces advocating education, employment, and increased family responsibilities for women, while deploring women's political and marital inequality. Mention of the fact that the civil codes of 1870 and 1884 significantly advanced women's rights would have further strengthened Arrom's argument.

Arrom does not discuss whether women's improved status counteracted the effects on women of instability in the Mexican economy during the nineteenth century. However, this is not so much a weakness in her work as it is the inevi-table result of scholars' neglect of this 　　period. Indeed, such gaps in Mexican history are precisely what make Arrom's pioneering study an important addition to Latin American women's history.

Question List: 1 2 3 4

According to the author of the passage, Arrom's study can be characterized as "an important addition to Latin American women's history" (lines 21-22) because it

  • A offers a radical thesis concerning the status of women's civil rights in Mexican society during the nineteenth century
  • B relies on a new method of historical analysis that has not previously been applied to Latin American history
  • C focuses only on the status of women in Mexican society
  • D addresses a period in Mexican history that scholars have to some extent neglected
  • E is the first study to recognize the role of the Mexican government in encouraging women's education

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