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Two, I don't think you understand that incomes were so low back then that they could not afford even basic machinery. The furniture that most people had was a few chairs, tables, and things to eat with. Even basic household machinery (for example, a mangle) that was common in pre-20th century rural society, didn't exist (these machines also weren't produced in large volume)I don't need to "understand". I come from such a place, which was mostly like that until I was 10 or so well into the late 20th century. That's where my parents grew up too.
Being poor in monetary terms in such rural places means little (it's not the same as an equivalent poor in New York, which would be not having anything to it, no house, no shelter, and so on). Most of the living wasn't about paying for things with money.
>Three, no most women didn't work...I am not sure why and how you came to this conclusion. But women didn't commonly start working until proto-industrialisation. I think what may be confusing you is that women did work in agriculture during harvest times
Women worked fine, not just in rural places, but also in the cities, in all kinds of jobs, all the way to antiquity. The conceptions you have are all about richer families, not the average person. Of course in argiculture it was absolutely the norm that women worked. Women also worked in all kinds of jobs, from selling and serving in the agora in ancient Greece ("women at home" was for the richer families) to keeping shops and tarverns in the medieval times.
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this was not the case for most of the year.*
It wasn't "most of the year" for men, either. That's part of TFA's point to begin with.
>Four, the definition of household tasks isn't even comparable. Household tasks included things like gardening which would only make sense in the context of a society with a non-existent market economy. Again, the comparison is...non-sensical, it makes no sense.
Comparable to what? To the tasks you might know in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Phoenix, or wherever you grew up?
All these tasks (like gardening) and the for the most part "non-existent market economy" extended all the way into my childhood, and all earlier generation, in the parts I'm from, and many similar parts. They're still a big majority of what people do, though for the last 30-40 years they also have electricity.
Yes, people in my village (not any extraordinary example, most of Europe was alike) didn't have electricity (including fridges, microwaves, washing machines), money was small part of their life, and had gardens they ate from a lot of stuff (from olives and grapes, to potatoes and watermelon), including having farm animals. Well into the second half of the 20th century.
And they still had ample free time. Due to lack of modern entertainment, in a sense, boredom, and associated e.g. drinking, gossip, petty squables, etc. to pass the time, was more of an issue than lack of free time was.
>Five, you can just Google this. There are ample historical estimates of this kind of thing. It is not like this information is totally unknown.
Seriously, do some research yourself. Start from TFA, there are plenty of other sources on antiquity, middle ages, and the pre-industrial society.
