单选题 Marcia Seligson calls the wedding dress the "key metaphor" in the elaborate effort to make the American wedding an "idealized departure from reality", and notes that in the early 1970s, at a time when love-ins, live-ins, and hippie weddings were throwing brickbats at tradition, 94 percent of American brides still chose to be married in white. The color has long been associated with weddings because of its supposed symbolic link to virginity. Commenting slyly on the tradition, Judith Martin (1982) observes that an engaged couple needs to decide "whether wearing a white wedding dress will be worth enduring the sneers of people who believe these must be accessorized by intact hymns".
Viewed historically, the link between white and virginity (or, as it is sometimes euphemized, purity) is not as absolute as is often supposed. Brides in ancient Rome married in white, but because the color signified joy; they were veiled in bright orange veil, or flammeum, that suggested the flames of passion. In the western Catholic tradition, too, white has always been the color of joy, and it remains the iconographical-ly correct hue for such jubilant occasions as Easter Sunday. Some traditional societies use white to denote the significance of various passage ceremonies, among them funerals as well as weddings. For example, among the Andaman Islanders, said A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, white indicated simply a change of status; and the traditional Chinese white for funerals was a symbolic representation of hope.
The "traditional" white wedding dress, moreover, is a recent innovation. Barbarar Fober explains that its popularity may owe less to the mystique of virginity than to a curious twist of conspicuous display. "Most Victorian bribes," she says, "wore simply their 'best finery' on their wedding day, and many wore traditional ethnic costumes." The white dress was an ostentatiously impractical innovation that became popular among the upper classes precisely because of its defects: "Victorian bribes" from privileged backgrounds wore white to indicate that they were rich enough to wear a dress for one day only. And throughout the first years of this century, brides from somewhat less privileged backgrounds would trot out the white dress on special occasions through-out the first year of their marriage. The custom of locking the treasure away after the wedding--so that, like a toasting glass, it could never be used for a lesser purpose--is less than a hundred years old.

单选题 According to the passage, wearing a white wedding dress has little to do with ______ .
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】结合第1段和第2段可知,白色一直与婚礼相联系,因为人们认为白色象征着童真和纯洁。20世纪70年代初,颓废派青年未婚同居、嬉皮士婚礼等向传统大肆攻击,然而美国94%的伴侣仍然身着白色礼服结婚。由此可知,白色与传统相联系,选项中只有C未被提及。
单选题 From historical point of view, the white color has been' associated with all of the following EXCEPT ______ .
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】由第2段倒数第5行、第4行可知,白色既用于婚礼,也用于丧礼;由第2段第3行可知,白色代表着欢乐;由第2段最后一行可知,中国传统丧礼上的白色象征着希望;而由第2段第3行、第4行可知,flammeum象征着火焰一般的热情。故选B。
单选题 It can be inferred from the passage that white dress ______ .
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】文中明确指出,白色服装代表着传统,故B不正确;而白色并不一定意味着给人们带来欢乐,有时也用于丧礼,故C也不正确;由文中第3段可知,“白色象征着维多利亚贵族”显然不正确;而我们由第2段可知,白色衣着在很多地区、很多场合、很多文化中都广受欢迎,故选A。
单选题 Nowadays, after the wedding white dress for brides from ordinary families ______ .
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】由最后一段最后一行得知,就像祝酒的酒杯一样,婚礼之后把婚礼服当做宝物似的收藏起来,再不用于任何稍微逊色的目的,这一风俗还不到100年,因此选D。
单选题 The best title for the passage is ______ .
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】本文主要讲述为什么人们喜欢在婚礼及其他特别场合身着白色,正确答案为D“白色衣服的魅力”。B和C均含义太广。