Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37166
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37166
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

While there are injustices in every society, and the rich and strong oppress the poor and weak in every society (including our own), current ideas about what is biased or unfair treatment can't be projected back on past societies. Modern society is highly anomalous in its individualism and in the central, even defining, role that career plays in people's lives and how they understand their value.

- Most people in most societies until the very recent present were farmers and the whole family, men, women, children, would have work to do, all of which was essential to the survival of the family. It was a family enterprise. Everyone worked and everyone had a role suited to their physical capacities. The farm kitchen was a factory that produced all kinds of goods, and if the women worked largely in the factory rather than in the fields it was, before anything else, because she had to supervise the children in their tasks. But women and children did also work in the fields at times, weeding, harvesting, gleaning. 

- The idea of a woman not working was a middle class conceit. In the aristocracy, no one worked (though the men fought, occasionally). With the rise of the middle class, it became a mark of status for a family to be rich enough for the woman not to work. But in poorer families, everyone worked, and the professions were closed to the entire class, not just to the women. When idleness ceased to be a status symbol, the demand for access to high-class jobs increased.

- Most prior societies were extremely social in orientation. Families and communities were the center of life and everyone had a role to play. The kind of individualism that is universal today would be unknown to most societies. Most people would know the names of everyone they met in the average day. Strangers would be rare. People by and large depended on particular people for the necessities of life: the baker, the miller, the smith. They did not get their goods from institutions, they got them from individuals that they had known all their lives. When we depend on individuals, we expect those individuals to play their role, because if they don't the entire village suffers. That kind of society can't afford modern individualism. We depend on institutions, not people. This means we have no real stake in the actions of individuals and so can become less concerned with their behavior and their conformance to social norms. If the baker gets drunk and falls off his roof, I will still have bread for my family in the morning. 

- Up until the invention of the police force in the 19th century, there was no formal government protection for individuals. Husbands were responsible for the physical protection of their wives and children (individually and collectively), and they really did need protection. With rampant disease and population growth that was slow to non-existent, the survival of women and children was key to the survival of a clan. Raiding to steal wives and children was common in early societies, because it was often the only way to maintain or grow your tribe. Thus the relationship of husbands and wives was one of protector and protectee. The father giving the bride away to her husband at her wedding symbolizes this handing over of protective duty. This asymmetrical relationship between spouses may appear as simple inequality today, when the protective function is provided by the state, but it served an essential social function for most of human history and so it is unlikely that many people of either sex resented it as an institution, though they may have resented how it was practiced by particular spouses. 

- The kinds of lives available to men and to women, nevertheless, differed considerably from one society to another. You would probably have been more likely to find women involved in medicine in medieval times than in the 19th century, for instance. Monasteries offered the opportunity for learning and for various kind of professional work to both women and men. 

- Along with our individualism, our careers have become the center of our lives. Our workplaces are our communities. They are were we find the company and the esteem of our peers. To be denied a career opportunity, therefore, is to be denied a social role, to be denied access to the sources of social esteem. But in most previous societies, for the vast majority of people, family and community were the center of their lives. People would gain the company and esteem of their peers through the contributions they made to the life of the community. Certainly some crafts would have greater prestige and wealth associated with them, but one's careers was usually not so much at the center of one's psyche it way it is today. 

- Finally, another way in which our current society is anomalous is that the cult of character, which had been paramount in the west for centuries has given way to the cult of personality. We no longer judge or value people for their character but for their personality. This has led, among other things, to the glorification of the extrovert, the celebrity, the star. Too feel valued, we often feel we need to stand out, to make a mark, to be noticed and celebrated. The means to gain such celebrity therefore become vital to our sense of self and our self esteem. Where people in the past would have gained the respect of others, and therefore their self esteem, for their character, for the way they did their duty diligently and without complaint, the way they served their neighbours, this is not enough for us now. Access to roles that allow for the exercise and display of personality is therefore a more pressing issue. 

It is an old saw to say that you have to judge the people of the past in the context of their time, but to a large extent it misses the point. The world of the past was very different and people had different expectations for their lives. The essential things we all crave -- food, protection, love, the esteem of our peers -- came from very different sources.

People chafe at the injustice of the things that keep them from meeting these needs. But when those needs are met in very different ways, expect that people will chafe at very different things.

Part of writing realistically about the past is conveying this sense of things to your reader, and of situating your characters, their desires and their complaints, in that kind of society. Their notion of what were the greatest injustices of their day would be very different from the notions of injustice that many people have today.

People's sense of injustice is largely engaged with the thing that is preventing them from getting the thing that most occupies their thoughts. For most human for most of history, the thing that most occupies their thoughts was, is there going to be enough food to last the winter and are my children and animals safe from marauders. We have the luxury of feeling injustices because we mostly don't have to worry about those things.

Don't project the anxieties and resentments of today onto the past. They had their own anxieties and their own resentments. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Original score: 6