1Subsequent research in Kenya convinced Robertson that she had overgeneralized about Africa. 2Before colonialism, gender was more salient in central Kenya than it was in Ghana, although age was still crucial in determining authority. 3In contrast with Ghana, where women had traded for hundreds of years and achieved legal majority (not unrelated phenomena), the evidence regarding central Kenya indicated that women were legal minors and were sometimes treated as male property, as were European women at that time. 4Factors like strong patrilinearity and patrilocality, as well as women's inferior land rights and lesser involvement in trade, made women more dependent on men than was generally the case in Ghana. 5However, since age apparently remained the overriding principle of social organization in central Kenya, some senior women had much authority. 6Thus, Robertson revised her hypothesis somewhat, arguing that in determining authority in precolonial Africa age was a primary principle that superseded gender to varying degrees depending on the situation.

Q6 

The author of the passage mentions the status of age as a principle of social organization in precolonial central Kenya in lines 24-26(highlight) most likely in order to

A) indicate that women's dependence on men in precolonial Kenya was not absolute

B) contrast the situation of senior women to that of less senior women in precolonial Kenyan society

C) differentiate between the status and authority of precolonial Kenyan women and that of precolonial Ghanaian women

D) explain why age superseded gender to a greater extent in precolonial Kenya than it did elsewhere in Africa

E) identify a factor that led Robertson to revise her hypothesis about precolonial Africa