The past was not that cute

"A woman's work is never done."

In our agrarian past, the cultural division of labor at the time said that men worked the field, women ran the home. And that later job was brutal, never-ending, and consumed all waking hours until the day she died.

Men broke their backs in the field, women consumed their lives doing the ceaseless work that never ended, every waking moment. (And occasionally helped out in the field, too).

Running a family was a brutal two-person job -- and the kids had to dive in to help out the second they could lift something heavier than a couple pounds.

We forget so easily that for the entire history of our species - up until just recently - simply staying alive and somewhat warm and minimally fed was a hundred-hour-a-week job for mom and dad.

There are important downsides, but the Green Revolution - and dare I say it, the industrial revolution - was truly transformative for our species.

I have read that hunter-gatherers generally had an easier life than peasants in agricultural societies. But the hunter gatherer lifestyle can only support small groups with a low overall population density. So the hunter-gatherers always lost out to agricultural societies, when they came into contact/conflict. Not sure how prevalent this view is amongst professional anthropologists.