I agree that 40 hour weeks was silly. ;) 100 hour weeks are also silly, however, especially when you consider the religious proscriptions against working on the Sabbath. 100 hour weeks is almost 17 hours a day (six days), leaving 7 hours for all sleep, eating, hygiene, recreating, family care, etc. Pretty much physically impossible. Also, as I understand it (though I am no expert), accounts of medieval life show that aside from sowing season and reaping season (when everyone DID work 100-hour weeks for very short periods), there was lots of leisure time. Let's compromise at 60-80 hour weeks.
I also agree with your points about my shirts (thin and tumble-dried). On the other hand, my shirts are woven/knitted from a very consistent fabric, which might help, and they're exposed to very little mechanical abuse outside of the dryer (I do not do physical labour, I'm very sessile, and for that matter I don't get much acidic sweat on them). And my shirts _are_ usually showing multiple (small) holes after those ~100 days of wear. You really think their shirts would last 3650 wearings, 36 times as much as my shirts? Thirty six times? Nonsense. My 7x might be low, but I bet it's closer than your 36x.
Also, as I mention in a cousin-post, I think the author screwed up her math twice, such that I think the correct number given her inputs is 879 hours, which I'm gonna call 10-15 weeks of labour. And then once we account for other clothing, as I did in my previous comment, by assuming that all non-shirt garments collectively are as expensive as one shirt, we're up to perhaps 25 weeks of labour total.
So it takes four months to make a set of clothes, and the set lasts a few years. So I'm no longer saying "one quarter of your life", I'm saying "more than ten percent". When you wear your clothes until they fall off you.
The Talmud reference is very interesting. You say 50 workdays (that's 8 weeks... you agree that the people referenced in the Talmud didn't work the Sabbath, right?) for 52 weeks of clothing, which is one sixth of one's life.
I've worn shirts for longer than 100 days with no holes. T-shirts are very thin and don't last. Thicker fabric lasts exponentially longer, not just a bit longer. And the dryer is really hard on fabric.
I stand by my 10 year guess-timate - especially when you include repair.
I don't think there was ever any real leisure time. Instead it was low-energy time. For things like spinning and making cloth, but not hard work. So 90 hours a week might actually be right. (100 was too high.)
The Talmud numbers are for a poor person, not an average person. Those are the numbers below which someone should get social help. Most people would spend more I think.
The 1 zuz a day is income from outside work. A person would also work at home, so their income could be another 50% on top of that (not as money but as made at home goods). I assume the 1 zuz a day is for the poor person, not the average.
I do wonder if other people worked 7 days a week, and the Tamlud figures are not representative of the majority.
I also agree with your points about my shirts (thin and tumble-dried). On the other hand, my shirts are woven/knitted from a very consistent fabric, which might help, and they're exposed to very little mechanical abuse outside of the dryer (I do not do physical labour, I'm very sessile, and for that matter I don't get much acidic sweat on them). And my shirts _are_ usually showing multiple (small) holes after those ~100 days of wear. You really think their shirts would last 3650 wearings, 36 times as much as my shirts? Thirty six times? Nonsense. My 7x might be low, but I bet it's closer than your 36x.
Also, as I mention in a cousin-post, I think the author screwed up her math twice, such that I think the correct number given her inputs is 879 hours, which I'm gonna call 10-15 weeks of labour. And then once we account for other clothing, as I did in my previous comment, by assuming that all non-shirt garments collectively are as expensive as one shirt, we're up to perhaps 25 weeks of labour total.
So it takes four months to make a set of clothes, and the set lasts a few years. So I'm no longer saying "one quarter of your life", I'm saying "more than ten percent". When you wear your clothes until they fall off you.
The Talmud reference is very interesting. You say 50 workdays (that's 8 weeks... you agree that the people referenced in the Talmud didn't work the Sabbath, right?) for 52 weeks of clothing, which is one sixth of one's life.
Sounds like our estimates agree.