It’s
tempting, sometimes, to think that life was simpler in the past, “in the good
old days”….
In
some ways, of course, it’s obviously true: in 1215 and in 1620 and in the late
18th century no one had to worry about keeping track of the
recharging cords for the iPhone and the tablet and the Kindle and the laptop.
Mostly,
though, simply, life was different in the past.
Prof.
Patricia Crone makes this searingly obvious in her book, Pre-Industrial Societies. She writes broadly and with insight about
the differences between our contemporary industrial society and all of the pre-industrial
societies that nurtured and framed the lives of all the human beings who lived
before the Industrial Revolution changed almost everything, barely more than
200 years ago.
For
instance, childhood.
Crone
says:
“…modern
society is distinctive in its perception of children as creatures who must be
shielded from adult secrets…on the grounds that they are innocent, and exempted
from adult responsibilities (especially work) on the grounds that they are busy
with their education…Childhood is perceived as a long and glorious holiday from
adult society…
But
in pre-industrial societies the infantile holiday was exceedingly short…Children
learnt the ‘facts of life’ by watching and hearing just as they learnt anything
else…Nor could they be exempted from adult responsibility for long. There was
little, if any, formal schooling for the majority. Boys would usually start
participating in adult work at about the age of seven, girls might begin to
acquire domestic tasks even earlier.
 |
| Coal mine workers, Pittston, PA (Photo by Lewis Hine) |
Adult
status was conferred by physical maturity, real or presumed, at least as far as
boys were concerned…Still, they might not be seen as fully adult in either law
or custom until they had married (or reached an age where [sic] they ought to
have done so); and marriage was usually indispensable for social recognition of
adulthood in a girl, whatever her legal position.”
N.
B. Britain passed the first child labor laws restricting work hours and working
conditions for kids in the early 19th century. In 1836 Massachusetts
enacted the first American child labor law, requiring that young workers under
15 must attend school for at least three months each year.
Source:
Patricia
Crone, Pre-Industrial Societies (1989;
repr., Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), 110.
Copyright © Richard Carl
Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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