Passage 50
（2006 北京 D）

While parents, particularly mothers, have always been attached to their infants （婴儿）, societal conditions frequently made this attachment difficult to maintain （保持）.First of all, the high infant death rate in the premodern times meant that such attachments often ended in hopelessness.Perhaps to prevent the sadness that infant death caused,a number of societal practices developed which worked against early attachment of mother and child.

One of these premodern attachment-discouraging practices was to leave infants unnamed until they had survived into the second year.Another practice that discouraged maternal （母亲的）attachment was tightly wrapping （包裹）infants.Wrapping effectively prevented the close physical interactions like stroking （抚摸）and kissing that are so much a part of modern mothers' and fathers' affection for their infants.

a third practice which had the same distancing effect was wet-nursing.breast-feeding （母乳哺育）was not popular among the well-to-do in the early modern times; infants were often fed by wet nurses hired for the purpose.In some places, such as nineteenth-century France, city infants were sent to wet nurses in the country.Often a wet nurse would feed her own child first, leaving little milk for the city infant—who, in many cases, died. In Rouen, the death rate for children sent to a wet nurse was 35 percent.

1.babies were unnamed until they were two so that ______.

A. an old social custom could be kept up

B. maternal attachment could be maintained

C. they could have better chances to survive

D. their parents would not be too sad if they died

2.Why were babies wrapped?

A. To protect them from the cold.

B. To distance their mothers from them.

C. To make them feel more comfortable.

D. To make it easy for their mothers to hold them.

3.Wet nurses were women who ______.

A. babysat city infants

B. fed babies of other families

C. sent their babies to the country

D. failed to look after their babies

4.Which is the best title for the Passage?

A. Societal conditions in Premodern Times

B. Practices of Reducing Maternal attachment

C. Poor Health Service and High Infant death Rate

D. differences between Modern and Premodern Parents

【重点词汇】

be attached to 依恋，喜欢

hopelessness n.绝望

survive v.幸存

interaction n.交互作用

wet-nurse n.奶妈

affection n.爱，感情

well-to-do adj.富裕的

Rouen 鲁昂（法国港口城市）

【疑难长句】

Perhaps to prevent the sadness that infant death caused,a number of societal practices developed which worked against early attachment of mother and child.

前面的不定式短语做目的状语，后面which引导的同位语从句修饰前面的societal practices。

（参考译文）可能为了阻止婴儿死亡带来的悲伤，社会上逐渐产生了一些普遍的习俗，用来弱化早期的母子亲情。