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.

It's an interesting thread to have started though. Doesn't matter if you're not an expert. (Nor am i)

That's a myth. It's proof why range is important when dealing with averages.
Many people lived till 70 (see the bible, 3 score years and 10) and many died in infancy. Hence the average being 35-37. The range is too big for the average to be a representative of the norm 😊

And the daughters of landowners and gentry married off as children to a man of their father's choice to keep the land in agreed lines.

@sadaboutmycat only 10% of people born in 1850 made it to 80.

Once surviving childhood, life expectancy rose to 57.

25% didn't make it past the age of 5.

You make a valid point in paragraph 1.

And then do exactly what you’ve accused the pp of in paragraph 2….!

Try watching/ reading some of Ruth Goodman’s TV programmes/ books. She is brilliant at illustrating the life of women through the ages.

I would have died at age 3. If I’d made it to adulthood, I’d have died in childbirth along with my second child. My first child would be dead of an infection. Ah, the simple life. 😁

😄

Earringsandlipstick The reference attached from Redrobyn21 talked of the historian writing about sleep and it was not known about by him and no one I have mentioned it to knew either. I do not think it's widely known

See Sleep in Early Modern England by Sasha Handley which was written before that article!

Are we talking about biphasic sleep? Yes, it’s widely known, I would have said. I’m no historian, and I have known about it for decades — no idea how, just in general knowledge terms.

When my dd was 14, she used to have random showers at 3.00 am.

Her reasoning was that people used to have 2 sleeps