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AP US History · Sourcing and situation

Which limitation is most important when using Murray’s essay as evidence about the daily experience of women in the early republic?

Judith Sargent Murray, 1790

In an essay published in 1790, Murray argued that observed differences in men’s and women’s intellectual achievement reflected unequal education, not unequal natural capacity. Boys, she argued, were encouraged toward study and public ambition, while girls were confined to domestic instruction. Women could not fairly be judged intellectually inferior when they had been denied comparable opportunities to learn.

Adapted from Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” Massachusetts Magazine, 1790.
Which limitation is most important when using Murray’s essay as evidence about the daily experience of women in the early republic?

Answer and explanation

Answer: D: A prescriptive essay by a highly literate writer shows an argument about inequality more clearly than it shows how typical women lived or what most Americans believed

The essay is a prescriptive argument written by a highly literate author, so it shows an idea about inequality circulating in 1790 more clearly than it shows typical women's daily lives or what most Americans believed. That limitation makes D correct. Choice A is tempting but unconvincing, because publication in 1790 falls squarely within the early republic and does not make the source unusable. Choice B dismisses the source because Murray was a woman, which is not a valid historical objection. Choice C claims an essay about education cannot illuminate gender, yet education is central to her argument.

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