Исследовательская работа на тему: "Жизнь монархов в прошлом и настоящем" в рамках X международной недели английского языка на сайте nic-snail.ru

What did the 300-years-ago life look like?

The quality of life depended on whether you were rich or poor. If you were rich you could have a good and easy life. But if you were poor you could have a rough and hard life, often ending up in the workhouse or early death.

• Family life

Families were usually large, in 1700 many families had five or six children.

Each member of the family had their own role and children were taught to "know their place" and "be seen and not heard". They called their fathers 'sir'.

All households except the very poorest had servants to do their everyday work.

• Religion

Religion was very important 300 years ago. A great number of people went to church, at least once and probably twice, every Sunday.

• Food

There were no fridges and freezes in the homes to keep food for a long time, so people  pickled or preserved food.

Basic foods were: beef, mutton, pork, bacon, cheese, eggs, bread, potatoes, rice, oatmeal, milk, vegetables in season, flour, sugar, treacle, jam and tea.

And what is it now in UK?

Even now the English are a nation of stay-at-home. “There is no place like home,” they say. But today the family in Britain is changing.

• Family life

Nowadays a “typical” British family consists of mother, father and two children. But also there are a lot of one-parent families. Relationships in the family are different now. Parents treat their children more as equals than they used to, and children have more freedom to make their own decisions. The father is more involved with bringing up children, often because the mother goes out to work.

• Religion

Britain is a multi faith society in which everyone has the right to religious freedom. Although Britain is historically a Christian society, people are usually very tolerant towards the faiths of others and those who have no religious beliefs.

• Food

Modern British cuisine is not so much a revival of old dishes, but a re-interpretation, often with an element of fusion, taking the best of traditional stews, roasts, pies and puddings and re-inventing them.

• Clothes

300 years-ago men often wore a waist coat. Ladies wore long skirts or dresses.  The majority of women wore a hat or bonnet.

Children were often dressed in a miniature version of their parents.

• Clothes

English people wear very much the same as any other modern western society - ranging from Jeans. Special clothes for the climate include heavy overcoats or anoraks for cold winter weather to raincoats and umbrellas, for weather rain. Most of children wear a school uniform.