Passage 7
In 1896 a Georgia couple suing for damages in the
accidental death of their two year old was told that since
the child had made no real economic contribution to the
family, there was no liability for damages. In contrast,
(5) less than a century later, in 1979, the parents of a three
year old sued in New York for accidental-death damages
and won an award of $750,000.
The transformation¹ in social values implicit² in juxta-
posing these two incidents is the subject of Viviana
(10) Zelizer’s excellent book, Pricing the Priceless Child.
During the nineteenth century, she argues, the concept
of the “useful” child who contributed to the family
economy gave way gradually to the present-day notion
of the “useless” child who, though producing no income
(15) for, and indeed extremely costly³ to, its parents, is yet
considered emotionally “priceless.” Well established
among segments of the middle and upper classes by the
mid-1800’s, this new view of childhood spread through-
out society in the iate-nineteenth and early-twentieth
(20) centuries as reformers introduced child-labor⁴ regulations
and compulsory⁵ education laws predicated in part on the
assumption that a child’s emotional value made child
labor taboo⁶.
For Zelizer the origins of this transformation were
(25) many and complex. The gradual erosion of children’s
productive value in a maturing industrial economy,
the decline in birth and death rates, especially in child
mortality, and the development of the companionate
family (a family in which members were united by
(30) explicit⁷ bonds of love rather than duty) were all factors
critical in changing the assessment⁸ of children’s worth.
Yet “expulsion of children from the ‘cash nexus,’...
although clearly shaped by profound changes in the
economic, occupational, and family structures,” Zelizer
(35) maintains. “was also part of a cultural process ‘of sacral-
ization’ of children’s lives. ” Protecting children from the
crass business world became enormously important for
late-nineteenth-century middle-class Americans, she
suggests; this sacralization was a way of resisting what
(40) they perceived as the relentless⁹ corruption¹⁰ of human
values by the marketplace.
In stressing the cultural determinants of a child’s
worth. Zelizer takes issue with practitioners¹¹ of the new
“sociological economics,” who have analyzed¹² such tradi-
(45) tionally sociological topics as crime, marriage, educa-
tion, and health solely¹³ in terms of their economic deter-
minants. Allowing only a small role for cultural forces
in the form of individual “preferences,” these sociologists
tend to view all human behavior as directed primarily by
(50) the principle of maximizing economic gain. Zelizer is
highly critical of this approach, and emphasizes instead
the opposite phenomenon: the power of social values to
transform price. As children became more valuable in
emotional terms, she argues, their “exchange” or “ sur-
(55) render” value on the market, that is, the conversion¹⁴ of
their intangible worth into cash terms, became much
greater.
 
37. It can be inferred from the passage that accidental-death damage awards in America during the nineteenth
century tended to be based principally on the
(A)   earnings¹⁵ of the person at time of death
(B)   wealth of the party causing the death
(C)   degree of culpability¹⁶ of the party causing the death
(D)  amount of money that had been spent on the person killed（A）
(E)   amount of suffering endured by the family of the person killed
 
38. It can be inferred from the passage that in the early 1800’s children were generally regarded by their families as individuals who
(A)   needed enormous amounts of security and affection
(B)   required constant supervision¹⁷ while working
(C)   were important to the economic well-being¹⁸ of a family
(D)  were unsuited to spending long hours in school（C）
(E)   were financial burdens assumed for the good of society
 
39. Which of the following alternative explanations of the change in the cash value of children would be most likely to be put forward by sociological economists¹⁹ as they are described in the passage?
(A)   The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because parents began to increase their emotional investment in the upbringing of their children.
(B)   The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because their expected earnings over the course of a lifetime increased greatly.
(C)   The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because the spread of humanitarian²⁰ ideals resulted in a wholesale²¹ reappraisal of the worth of an individual
(D)  The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because compulsory education laws reduced the supply, and thus raised the costs, of available child labor. （B）
(E)   The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because of changes in the way negligence²² law assessed damages in accidental-death cases.
 
40. The primary purpose of the passage is to
(A)   review the literature in a new academic subfield
(B)   present the central thesis of a recent book
(C)   contrast two approaches to analyzing²³ historical change
(D)  refute a traditional explanation of a social phenomenon（B）
(E)   encourage further work on a neglected historical topic
 
41. It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following statements was true of American families over the course of the nineteenth century?
(A)   The average size of families grew considerably
(B)   The percentage of families involved in industrial work declined dramatically.
(C)   Family members became more emotionally bonded²⁴ to one another.
(D)  Family members spent an increasing amount of time working with each other. （C）
(E)   Family members became more economically dependent on each other.
 
42. Zelizer refers to all of the following as important influences in changing the assessment of children’s worth EXCEPT changes in
(A)   the mortality rate
(B)   the nature of industry
(C)   the nature of the family
(D)  attitudes toward reform movements（D）
(E)   attitudes toward the marketplace

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