I studied life in France from the 1600’s and I am going to share with you what I learned. People in France 1600’s would hardly wash their bodies. Taking a bath was considered not healthy and bad for the body if you washed to much. This could also kill if you got a deisies. The average life expectancy was about 15-20 years old. It was a young age but back then they had many more sicknesses and not many cures for them. Some other things that could kill people were diseases and accidents. The accedents are more refuring to things like someone stimbled of of a cliff, or I triped out of the window. If you used a diet the wrong way you might die of starvation. If a person would go on a diet it would have to contain these items to stay healthy: black bread, beer, and sometimes little or no meat, fresh vegetables.
Richer people had servants to clean their house. Nobles of sword and Nobles of robe did not pay taxes, along with the richer people. Those with the least amount of money would pay more taxes. Those with with more money would not pay many taxes or would even pay none! If you were a rich person who had to pay little taxes (and you wanted to pay none) then you could buy a spot (for you and your family) as noble of robe. A noble of robe is a person who bought their tittle without being a soilder or a family member of the royals. Those with the least amount of money were middle class (and were not peasants) were known as primarily in France. These people were shopkeepers, skilled workers, small business owners, and bankers.
The women would raise the children they were called carriers. If a women raised a child they would get payed for doing so. The men and fathers would usually plow, plant, run a shop, and or become migrate workers. Some children of peasants would become labors. The sad fact of it is that 25% of the infants would die before age 1! 55% died before age 10. The labors weren’t slaves simply servants or workers.
Some women would work the spinning wheel for a cottage industry. They would make their own space to make extra money, the extra money was to pay off their dowry. Or some would work as wet nurses to pay it off. A dowry is when a husband and wife get married the wife must pay the husband alot of money sometimes it would even take up to 10 whole years just to pay off their dowry. Another sad fact is the thumb rule. The thumb rule is when another man can beat a husbands wife with a stick, the rule is that the stick can’t be bigger than the husbands thumb.
Fun was considerd gambling, hunting, elaborate dinner parties, tennis, opera, ballet, dances, salons, and more. The food at these fun things were breads, wine or hard liquor and coffe, exotic spices. The clothes were simply the men wore curly with or brown wigs, but the women wore dresses that were 9” wide pretty long to me!
By: Chameer
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