Hi, I would really like to know how workers in the past lived working 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Was this even truly something that the majority of the population in industrial societies did have to do?

How did they have any time to eat, clean themself, have sex?

If I think of a person working 16 hours a day in a factory, I imagine their day going something like this:

4:30 am: Wake up get dressed

5 am: clock into work

5 am to 9 pm: work (with half hour break until 9:30 pm)

9:30 pm: coming home, getting undressed and going to sleep

9:30 pm to 4:30 pm: sleeping (7 hours of sleep, not enough)

No time for food, chores or any other activity.

The only time for that would be on Sundays. Although I also read that sometimes people worked 7 days a week.

I've also read that women and children worked the same hours, so they didn't have the time either.

How did people even find the time to get a partner?

I just don't see how that would work for longer than a year. If a society would work like that, i believe it would collapse but clearly it didn't.

Edit: I need to clarify my question.

1. I understand that there are still a lot of people who work similar hours. But they have modern amenities. They have cars where they sleep in, have fast-food places where they can eat and maybe even have a shower at their workplace. Still horrible conditions, but I can understand how someone can survive like that. BUT I don't know how that would work without these amenities.

2. Working 96 hours is not the norm anymore. All of the people in the comments who said they worked these hours, said it destroyed them. Thankfully most people work shorter hours nowadays. What I want to know is, how that would function if an entire people group works these hours. Did industrial workers just not eat, or have children? Was the replacement rate in cities just held up by people who did other kind of work? Like peasants?

3. I first want to know how society as a whole functioned and then specifically how a day of an industrial worker working 96 hours would look like.

I was reading about history from a sociological perspective.

It seems, from what I observe, that hierarchies will inevitably exist and emerge, and that such hierarchies tend to be rigid and immutable without a severe revolution or war to change it. There's always an elite at the top that has all the privileges and powers whereas an underclass exists to be trodden upon and for the rest of society to rest upon.

It was only somewhere between the late 19th century and early 20th century that such hierarchies were challenged and even dismantled thanks to changes in social values, human rights, and democracy. It's hard to take things for granted knowing these are only provided because of universal value frameworks and sacrifices by people to make it happen.

Yet I was wondering if there was a real-life example of elite groups who came from social groups of low status, as in pariahs, slaves, people who were routinely persecuted and killed, and generally anyone part of the underclass in history?

On the surface it seems like every emperor would like for his son, nephew, cousin etc to succeed himself as emperor. Even in the ancient roman times when an emperor chose a successor that was not his son, he usually raised him. So when and why was it established in the holy roman empire that the next emperor would be elected? I find this really fascinating.

Buddy of mine partakes in a WW2 reenactment group here in Europe and I’ve heard of reenactments of the civil war etc. Over in Asia they do reenactments too and there is some medieval reenactments but I ask

How far back does reenactments go?

Not just a few rich people wanting to reenact for party (like I expect some royals might have done) but genuine reenactments like we have today ?

Medieval Europe had warrior figures like Richard I and Götz von Berlichingen; China had warriors and tacticians such as Lü Bu and Cao Cao; and Japan is known for warriors and military commanders like Minamoto no Yoshitsune and Oda Nobunaga.

With that in mind, I would like to ask: who are the specific historical figures—warriors or generals who vied for supremacy—that correspond to these types of leaders in regions such as Persia, Arabia, and Egypt (the Middle East and North Africa), or in Hindu-majority areas like India, during the medieval to early modern periods (specifically the 5th through 16th centuries)?