Question Number 6

Question: "Structures, both social and physical are continually improving." Agree or disagree

Thesis: Social and Physical structures are improving in our world today.  

Primary Source #1

Report has also reached us that in the matter of the marriages of serfs, excessive payments are taken. We therefore command that no payments for marriage in any case exceed the sum of one solidus. If they are poor, even less should be given. If they are rich, they are never to pay more than the said solidus. We also desire that the marriage payment be in no way assigned to our accounts, but that it be devoted to the good of the tenants.

Pope Gregory the Great; Payment of a Merchant

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/600Merchet.html

Primary Source #2

Good day, Traveler. I am Samuel and I make my living as a cloth merchant. I live in a town with my lovely wife, Esther, our nine-year-old son, Michael, my journeyman, David, and my apprentice, Jeffrey. I weave fine cloth for the wealthy members of the nobility and I also import silk and velvet from the Far East. Michael is already learning my trade and will one day become a cloth merchant and inherit my business.

The Merchants Realm

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/middleages/contents.html

Primary Source #3

It is clear that the Egyptians were using their knowledge of the stars to assist them in their architectural projects from the beginning of the pharaonic period (c.3100-332 BC), since the ceremony of pedj shes ('stretching the cord'), reliant on astronomical knowledge, is first attested on a granite block of the reign of the Second-Dynasty king Khasekhemwy (c.2650 BC).

Building the Great Pyramid

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/great_pyramid_01.shtml

Explanation of Argument: Social and physical structures are always improving and changing. They have been all throughout history. For example, we do not have organized social classes nowadays. Also, our architecture has changed dramatically. We do not create large pyramids for our deceased. The way the Egyptians built their pyramids and created them so perfected in completely different than how we do it today. They looked at the stars and aligned their buildings perfectly. Now, we uses our mathematic tools for architecture.