Marianne Hardwick was timid and unadventurous, her vitality consumed by physical activity

and longing, here intelligence by indecisiveness, but this had less to do with the innate characteristics of her weaker sex (as her father, Creighton Montgomery, called it) than with the enfeebling circumstances of here upbringing. Creighion Montgomery had enough money to mould his daughters according to his misconceptions: girls were not meant to fend for themselves so he protected them from life. Which is to say that Marianne Montgomery grew up without making any vital choices for herself. Prevented from acquiring the habits of freedom and strength of character which grow from decision-making, very rich girls, whose parents have the means to protect them in such a crippling fashion, are the last representatives of Victorian womanhood. Though they may have the boldest manners and most up-to-date ideas, they share their great-grandmothers' humble dependence.

Most parents these days have to rely on their force of personality and whatever love and respect they can inspire to exert any influence over their children at all, but there is still an awful lot of parental authority that big money can buy. Multimillionaires have more of everything than ordinary mortals, including more parent power, and their sons and daughters have about as much opportunity to develop according to their own inclinations as they would have had in the age of absolute monarchy.

The rich still have families.

The great divide between the generations, which is so much taken for granted that no one remarks on it any longer, is the plight of the lower and middle classes, whose children begin to drift away as soon as they are old enough to go to school. The parents cannot control the school, and have even less say as to what company and ideas the child will be exposed to; nor can they isolate him from the public mood, the spirit of the age. It is an often-heard complaint of the middle-class mother, for instance, that she must let her children watch television for hours on end every day if she is to steal any time for herself. The rich have ho such problems; they can keep their offspring busy from morning to night without being near them for a minute more than they choose to be, and can exercise almost total control over their environment. As for schooling, they can hand-pick tutors with sound views to come to the children, who may never leave the grounds their parents own, in town, in the country, by the sea, unless for an exceptionally secure boarding school or a well-chaperoned trip abroad. It would have been easier for little Marianne Montgomery to go to Cairo than to the nearest newsstand.

What is the main idea of the selection？

A．The rich control their children's lives without being near them.

B．The generation gap only occurs in the lower and middle classes.

C．Rich parents have more authority over their children than poor parents.

D．Very rich girls are rather dependent as a result of being overprotected by their parents.