"Few historians would dispute that the market revolution brought substantial material benefits to most northeasterners, urban an
d rural.... Those who benefited most from the market revolution—merchants and manufacturers, lawyers and other professionals, and successful commercial farmers, along with their families—faced life situations very different from those known to earlier generations. The decline of the household as the locus of production led directly to a growing impersonality in the economic realm; household heads, instead of directing family enterprises or small shops, often had to find ways to recruit and discipline a wage-labor force; in all cases, they had to stay abreast of or even surpass their competitors." Sean Wilentz, historian, "Society, Politics, and the Market Revolution, 1815–1848," published in 1997
Which of the following cultural and social shifts resulted most directly from the trends described in the excerpt?
a. A sharp decline in regional differences
b. The emergence of new ideas about the proper roles of husbands and wives
c. A decline in the income gap between those in the wealthiest class and those in the working class
d. An increase in the importance placed on extended family relationships
