> Imagine if we were all working 18 hour subsistence farming jobs now just to survive...
Then you definitely shouldn't look at actual reports of time spent, leisure time, etc, in those eras.
Because that's nothing at all what life was in the eras you're thinking of.
How much of our modern time - work hours - do we spend to maintain the cars we take to work, and the large houses we were convinced to buy "as an investment," etc? Or just our personal tech stacks that always somehow seem to need replacement?
In those eras your entire life was basically work, because nobody else would do things for you. Fence broke? You gotta fix it.
Sure, they might not have spent as many hours farming, but they also needed to manually do all of the other things necessary for a decent life. Wash clothes by hand, take care of the (farm) animals, repair your house, build a house, cut trees, make firewood etc. It's an endless list of things that nowadays you just pay someone some money for.
I'm not sure I get your point. I don't own a car, and I rent my apartment. So... 0 in both cases? (unless vacuuming once a week counts as maintenance, then add a dozen minutes). I definitely don't feel like I have any significant burdens other than my paid job.
Then you definitely shouldn't look at actual reports of time spent, leisure time, etc, in those eras.
Because that's nothing at all what life was in the eras you're thinking of.
How much of our modern time - work hours - do we spend to maintain the cars we take to work, and the large houses we were convinced to buy "as an investment," etc? Or just our personal tech stacks that always somehow seem to need replacement?