• BottleOfAlkahest@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    There’s no way farming was only done 5 sporadic months of the year, that livestock keeping would allow you to just fuck off and not work that frequently, and they often did things like produce parts of their own cloths etc which I would count that much sewing/darning to be work let along the rest of the homesteading requirements…

    • deft
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      8 months ago

      but that would still be considered leisure today.

      do you know how many times i leave for work wishing i had time to do a load of wash, clean my bathroom, do the dishes or any other chore?

      yeah they had chores and we could debate that is work but they had more leisure time absolutely

      • yiliu@informis.land
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        8 months ago

        Medieval chores weren’t putting clothes in the washing machine or giving the bathroom a wipe, they were weaving and sewing clothes by hand and then laboriously washing them in the stream, and hauling buckets of shit. Everything was much harder and much less pleasant, and that was how you spent your ‘free time’.

          • jarfil@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            The point is they had all of that to do by hand, and still managed to “work for hire” less time than us in a society where over 90% of the stuff is automated.

        • deft
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          8 months ago

          You have a misconception of peasant life I believe. They had far more free time for socializing than you’d ever believe and the work they had to do day to day was not this slog you envision.

        • deft
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          8 months ago

          I don’t know why you think modern people have more leisure time?

          Peasant work was seasonal first of all, most work wasn’t consistent nor were they afforded wages. Most works resulted in a direct product for the person doing the work, cooking, clothes making, farming.

          You don’t understand how much leisure peasants had. Most culture we consider today is from peasant work. Dancing, music, song, joking, and while cooking is work cooking is also a social gathering of work and then eating. Peasants weren’t the working class we are today, we work far more and have far more chores to do. Making clothes by hand was harder but your quality was higher and clothes lasted, they didn’t shop for groceries or deal with car upkeep, they didn’t spend 8 hours at work and an hour traveling both ways.

          Peasants were peasants because they didn’t have work to do and generate income with, it was literally mostly chores or leisure.

          This is why the black plague was helpful, less people meant workers could make more demands and we see the beginning of a work culture develop.

            • deft
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              8 months ago

              I don’t get months of holidays? I haven’t had off in years bro. I get two days off from my job a year I don’t request, I am a chef.

              Peasants always stopped working, work was probably done before the sun was even close to going down. Hunting, fishing, cooking are leisure activities they aren’t work you imagine.

              It took long to produce clothes but you don’t need 47 outfits that are made to fall apart in less than a year.

              150 days isn’t a myth. It is a stretch of the truth but we work more, we have less time. We have more ability to do things like travel or forms of entertainment but no.

              You are confusing the peasants of then with middle class people. The poors, me, we work 40-60 hours a week sometimes two jobs with no vacations often in the hours office workers aren’t working because we are running the movie theaters, salting the roads, cooking your food, etc.

              A 9-5 is probably not actually the peasantry.

              People had more free time and less stressors than we do today.

        • jarfil@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Peasants had at least a couple changes of clothes, plus the Sunday and festivities clothes.

          Also don’t forget that salmon for dinner didn’t catch itself, you either spend the time, or it’s lobster night again. And better remember to get some flour to the baker to get some bread made for the family, or it’s lobster with month old moldy bread. Better hope the chickens lay some eggs for breakfast.