On Second Thought...

If I were born in a different historical time period, what would my life be like? It’s a question I’ve pondered many times. It’s fun to imagine myself in a previous era, meeting famous figures from the past, witnessing monumental, world-changing events, living out historical fantasies. But really, if I were to be born in another era and live an even somewhat enjoyable life, I would first have to change everything about myself: my personality, parents, class background, gender.

The truth is that for most of us, our lives in the past would have been difficult, miserable, and full of hardship. Unless you were lucky enough to be born in the upper classes, and a man, you would have endured a life of struggle and woe.

Firstly, it is more than likely I would have died before the age of 5, due to the abysmal rates of child mortality through most of human history. Maybe I even would have died, along with my mother, on the day I was born – my life ended on the very same day it started. If I made it past day one, I would have had to contend with plagues, viruses, infections, illnesses, all misunderstood and easily passed from one person to another in the days before sanitation and medicine.

If I survived infancy, I would have been extremely lucky to receive any education at all. I’d have to hope that I would have been born in the mid- to late 19th century, when schooling became more widespread and the governments of the day started building schools and regulating how many hours children could work.

It was in 1868 that a few women entered university for the first time, although it wouldn’t be until 1878 that women were allowed to be awarded degrees, despite passing the examinations. The University of Cambridge would not allow women to receive degrees until 1948.

Probably, I would have been put to work as soon as possible to help my parents keep a roof over our heads and food in the mouths of my six or seven younger brothers and sisters. If I had been born in the countryside, most likely I would have helped my parents out on the tenant farm. Maybe I would have had the fortune of being chosen by the local landowner to live a life of servitude in the manor house.

If the Industrial Revolution had already come to pass, I might have been born in a city and found employment in a factory. In this time period, I would expect to start work at the grand old age of eight. I would have laboured in a dangerous, dirty job for a pittance and a lifetime of lung problems, earning just enough to rent one room for a whole family in a tenement slum.

After a childhood of hard work on the farm or in the factory, I would perhaps have got married in my late teens or early twenties. Then I would have an adulthood of working hard outside and inside the home, looking after a family. Maybe I would have died while giving birth. Maybe I would have had ten children and destroyed my body. Maybe I would have lived until the ancient age of 60 and died a wizened old crone. Or perhaps I would have refused marriage, and become something even worse: an old maid.

Whichever way you look at it, life didn’t seem great for your average woman throughout history. Although we still face many challenges today (and there’s certainly a great deal of men online arguing to remove the rights and opportunities won through the blood, sweat and tears of our foremothers), things are much better for women than they’ve ever been before.

For now, at least in my country, I can receive an education and healthcare, go to university, enter a profession, earn a living, have a bank account, own a house (not that I can afford one, but that’s beside the point), and survive and thrive on my own. So personally, I think I’ll stick to the present.