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The past was not that cute

(juliawise.net)
430 points mhb | 5 comments | 06 Dec 25 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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PeterHolzwarth ◴[07 Dec 25 04:48 UTC] No.46179223[source]▶
"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.

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coldtea ◴[07 Dec 25 18:17 UTC] No.46183746[source]▶
>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.

On the plus side, they also didn't have to do the hard dangerous jobs like mining coal, building houses, and the like, nor did they have to go to the army, fight to defend their country (at least not as soldiers), and many other things.

Running the house was hardly "brutal", neither did it consume "all waking hours until the day she died".

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1. catlover76 ◴[07 Dec 25 18:46 UTC] No.46183986[source]▶
The fuck? Who do you think built the houses?

> army, fight to defend their country (at least not as soldiers), and many other things.

In most places and times, didn't all men just get conscripted into war frequently?

> Running the house was hardly "brutal", neither did it consume "all waking hours until the day she died".

Why do you think it didn't consume all waking hours?

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2. coldtea ◴[07 Dec 25 20:03 UTC] No.46184622[source]▶
>Who do you think built the houses?

The men. Again, I'm writing there about what women didn't have to do.

>In most places and times, didn't all men just get conscripted into war frequently?

Yes, and thus what I wrote is that women didn't have to do it.

(My point was: "yes, women did the house tasks, but on the plus side, they didn't have to do those other far more dangerous and hard things").

>Why do you think it didn't consume all waking hours?

I don't think it didn't, I know it didn't. For starters it was shared among larger family units (including several kids). And even when it wasn't, like some people living on their own, it hardly took a few hours each day, and that's including maintaining a fire, cooking, some cleaning, feeding some nearby hens, bringing water, and things like that. Modern people over-dependent on modern conveniences overestimate how hard all those things were, as if it was some horror survival movie.

In these here parts, people in the country did all the same things people did in the 19th century or the 15th century well into the 20th century (with cars and electricity not reaching many places until the late 1950s), all with plenty of time to spare and socialize.

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3. WalterBright ◴[07 Dec 25 20:47 UTC] No.46184998[source]▶
I'd sure hate to build a house without power tools. Just doing the sawing would break me.
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4. phil21 ◴[07 Dec 25 23:30 UTC] No.46186498{3}[source]▶
First few dozen cuts would suck.

After that it gets pretty easy, just time consuming. Keeping an old school saw sharp would be far more challenging.

I grew up in a household without power tools, and helped gut rehab a few friends houses. Certainly not exactly comparable, but you learn pretty quick sawing is at least as much about technique and skill vs brute strength and stamina.

5. decimalenough ◴[07 Dec 25 23:54 UTC] No.46186684[source]▶
You're completely missing the single largest source of domestic work, which was clothing. Spinning thread and weaving by hand are incredibly time consuming and consumed 40% of women's working hours.

Here's an overview by an actual historian, who estimates that women in a medieval peasant household worked 3,760 hours per year, which averages out to 80 hours per week.

https://acoup.blog/2025/10/10/collections-life-work-death-an...