Spending this afternoon imagining the simplicity of life 300 years ago…

[Gwendimarco]

Around 1700ish, pre industrial revolution.
Life would not be easy of course. Childbirth and infant mortality, no rights for women or the poor, work was hard and physical for many.

Life was hard, for sure.

But it was also simpler.

Imagine knowing (or at least expecting) that your grandchildren’s work and way of life would probably be much the same as your grandfather and great grandfather’s.

Imagine never really knowing many people or hearing much news beyond your own village.

Visiting another village could be a day’s travel, if not more. Letters would be delivered by boys on horseback - the Royal Mail isn’t invented yet.

You know where everything in your house was grown or made, and probably the person who grew or made it.

Most people are illiterate, entertainment is stories and theatre with your local community.

Spirituality and religion are how you and everyone around you unquestioningly (for the most part) navigate the trials and tribulations of daily life.

I couldn’t live that life now, accustomed as I am to the 21st century. But I do think wistfully of the slower pace and simplicity.

The range of food is going to vary depending on year (famine year or not?) and location. Live by the sea and even the poor can afford fish, live in Scotland and you are going to eat lots of oats, Somerset you can probably do well for apples and cider etc.

And don't be poor back then - omg they were awful times.
And who wants to know their kid will be doing the same thing as their grandparents (I mean if your grandparents were labourers working ten hour days six days a week)? Trapped in the legacy of their family.
If you want simple you can have it for yourself, but do not impose it on subsequent generations!

Aptly for this thread, this just showed up on my Facebook

You would have also fished from streams and lakes. Salmon was peasant food back then, so would have been oysters and other shell fish. Bacon would have been relatively common, same with ale. A hearty lunch of salmon, bread and vegetables doesn't seem bad to me.

Women didn't have many rights back then, but neither did most men, but it wasn't a lawless place.

EarringsandLipstick perfect mumsnet there. Just because you know about something doesn't mean it well known in general.

Kpo58 seroiusly. You really reckon that poor people could have spare time to go fishing/ do if without been accussed of poaching and suffering severe consequences. Fishing rights existed back then.

Late 16th/early 17th c were periods of widespread food shortages, wage depression & price rises. There was actual famine in some areas in the 1620s. Malnutrition was endemic. You can track dips in fertility because women were so malnourished they were no longer fertile & people were so poor they couldn't afford to get married. Great chunks of communities were entitely dependant on poor relief & begging. In winter there was no food if you were poor! There were no fridges, food was seasonal. Most people ate bread as their staple & if grain prices went up they could not afford it. If there was a bad harvest supply went down, prices went up. You might not be able to afford the fuel to cook even if you did get your hands on some fish or meat.

@Gwendimarco Thanks for starting this thread! I was just wondering what to do with myself this afternoon.

I don't wish I was alive back then but I will happily watch people pretend to be living back then, so I am going to re-watch Tales From The Green Valley on YT. I have a feeling you might enjoy it if you haven't seen it before. 😁

I’d have been dead for 46 years so I wouldn’t have been contemplating anything. Thank God for modern medicine.

Women were seen as lesser than men, there’s no denying it. It’s odd how much you are minimising that.

That’s to @Kpo58.

Pretty sure salmon fishing was heavily regulated from the middle ages onwards across England & Scotland with only certain people allowed to fish in managed fisheries. There were heavy penalties for nicking fish because they were owned by the landowners. By the 18th century you could be transported for fish theft.

I can't think of anything worse than life hundreds of years ago. So much work and stress just for basic life. Probably quite a lot of boredom, and very little freedom/choice for women. I'd be OK in the 80s or 90s but before that looks like quite hard work!

I can't imagine every single woman was happy to do nothing but have babies, they likely knew they had no choice though and it was better for them to not say anything.

This is ridiculous.

You are putting modern day sensibilities on an entirely different period of history.

Almost no woman, bar the very wealthy 'did nothing but have children'. And even the landed gentry had daily occupations, greatly different to the working masses of course.

People's lack of basic history astounds me.

EarringsandLipstick perfect mumsnet there. Just because you know about something doesn't mean it well known in general.

Odd comment. 'Perfect mumsnet'? 🤔

I was surprised it wasn't more well-known. It's a fairly core part of societal history 🤷🏻‍♀️

No need to be riled by that.

Neither I nor the OP have said life in the past was not without it's problems.

Even Poldark (yes, yes, made up I know) touched on lots of the issues - death of infants, hanging for fighting/stealing crimes, poor people being treated very badly, people dying from illness we now have cures for, starvation when harvests failed, arrogance of the upper classes.

However, I think the thread started as an escapism from modern day stresses. You only have to read mumsnet to see how many people are stressed by modern day pressures. You might not have a demanding boss who texts you on the weekend but plenty do. You might not hate the constant 'on and availableness' of our internet/social media/smart phone life but plenty do. You might not hate the fact that our vegetables in the supermarket are bland and tasteless but plenty do. You might not hate the fact our chickens are pumped full of antibiotics but plenty do. Thus the longing for a nostalgic thread where these things didn't happen.

All I'm saying is yes life was very hard 300 years ago but whether you like it or not some things were better. Maybe they were small things or maybe trivial things but they were still better. Our teenagers were not addicted to phones, our young men were not exposed to horrible violent porn, our husbands were not able to cheat so easily due to just fans or internet dating. We didn't live with the same isolation or being lonely problems that we do now. We weren't eating lots of artifical, high sugar foods that are so addictive now. Our planet was not so overpopulated with natural resources running out.

And is it not true that the population was far, far smaller 300 years ago. Thus it stands to reason that beaches would be emptier and there would be more space outside to get away from others. Just because Poldark showed it does not mean it was not true.

Sorry OP sounds miserable. Plus I would have died in childbirth as have had 3 c sections. That's if I made it to child bearing years. No pain relief would also be hell for me as I have a painful condition and no electricity to plug my heated blanket. So that's just about me for starters 😂 People just surviving unless you have money etc.

I sometimes have 'thank god I didn't have to live with this' moments. Such as when Storm Eunice cut off our electricity in February last year (I think??)

Cooking by candlelight, even on a gas hob, was difficult. Hard to see when things were boiling without getting up close and dangerously personal with the pot. Reading by candlelight or even a torch made our eyes ache. The living room soon got chilly even with the fire going and the central heating having been on until the storm struck just to warm the room up. All the doors were shut and still it cooled down significantly. The bedrooms were like ice as the temperature plummeted to freezing. Two blankets on top of winter duvets and hot water bottles and the beds still felt cold.

We were only without electricity for 36 hours. My sister lost hers for a week. But our ancestors lived that all winter, every winter. I'll stick with today I think - that was a 'maybe it's not so bad now. Sod doing this every day' moment for me. I'm sure, in 300 years, someone will say something similar about our way of living.

@poochypaws for nearly all the things you list you only need to go back to the 1970s, not the 1670s for. Not sure that living without the internet is such a great trade off, all things considered & you can still live 'simply' if you really want to. There are plenty of deserted beaches now & the beauty is we now have the time to enjoy them thanks to employment law & bank holidays & modern transport which means we can actually get to them - & a lack of smugglers who might have killed you if you stumbled on their stash (Poldark, again!).

I don’t think the landed gentry got off Scot-free -they likely had to raise and lead armies in support of the King/ Pope /the other gentry.
True they’d prob be on horseback rather than tramping miles on foot but they’d be at risk of death or capture then imprisonment/death.

Yes the flip side was no freedom of speech and you couldn't just mind your own business

Hi OP most of the replies are Very Clever, well done.

But I get what you're saying. Life is faster paced now than it ever has been. Doesn't mean the past was better, but it would be good to be able to slow down. Just not having a computer in my pocket where friends and work can reasonably expect me to respond within hours would be good.

Everything is so super efficient now. Social media is literally driving many of us to mental illness. Attention pulled 500 different ways. Hormones and micro plastics in our water, our food. Bright streetlights interrupting our circadian rhythms. An ever warming planet. Chemical and nuclear weapons. Fracturing of family units, financial inability for many women to parent young children full time - and when they do have the financial means, plenty of people on social media and places like here quick to say you're wrong for doing it, because we should apparently all be striving for continued growth growth growth, reaching for a nebulous end goal that'll probably be met with the end of humanity.

Yes, I wouldn't want to live in really any time in the past. But there's plenty about modern life that's awful.

Plenty of things that you can change or choose differently for yourself if you so choose. Without wistfully thinking of a simpler life in the 1800s. It just belittles the experiences and awful times people had back then. Awww salmon and veggies is not so bad and I wouldn't be addicted to my phone.

Cry me a river.

Yes, exactly. Social media is a choice. Avoiding additives in food is a choice. Death due to diseases that are now preventable or curable was less optional in the 18th century.

Yes because my post was clearly wistfully thinking of a simpler life in the 1800s 🙄the stupidity of some of you on here is incredible.

The truth is as a species we live further away than ever from how we evolved to live over thousands of years, and we are only speeding even further away from that. We can't even really know the potential unwanted consequences.

One can note that fact without minimising the hardships most of past humanity suffered.

I do understand that nuance is a terrifyingly difficult concept though.

Our teenagers were not addicted to phones, our young men were not exposed to horrible violent porn, our husbands were not able to cheat so easily due to just fans or internet dating. We didn't live with the same isolation or being lonely problems that we do now. We weren't eating lots of artifical, high sugar foods that are so addictive now.

I don't have any of these problems. I hope that doesn't sound smug. But I don't.

Pretty easy to not eat UPFs or high sugar food. We don't. One of my DC plays sports, the other reads. Neither addicted to phones though of course they use them to talk to friends. I don't think DH has cheated on Only Fans ( hope not).

I have other problems, but on balance, I will take them over the problems I would have had 300 years ago. Like dying of smallpox.