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  3. Large part as a consequence of the feminist movement, historians have focused a great deal of attention in recent years on deter

Large part as a consequence of the feminist movement, historians have focused a great deal of attention in recent years on deter

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问题   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 Johann 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, Bachofen 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 either 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.  
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about the myths recorded by the ancient Greeks?
选项 A、They may have included portrayals of women holding positions of power.
B、They may have contained elaborate explanations of inheritance customs.
C、They comprise almost all of the material available to historians about ancient Greece.
D、They may have contained explanations of inheritance customs and comprised all of the material available to historians about ancient Greece,
答案A
解析 本题为推断题。文章的第二段陈述道：Bachofen以神话和传说至少保留了历史的核心事实这一假设为基础，提出了妇女在许多古代社会中都占主导地位的论点，他特别引用了公元前五世纪的希腊历史学家 Herodotus的话作为自己理论的依据。他说到在Amazonhn Society中，妇女狩猎、打仗，而且要直到她在战斗中杀死过人，才会被允许成婚。据此，我们可以推断只有A与该段所述内容相符。
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