Re: do you find that women nowadays moan more about housework than times gone by?
There was much less to life than back in the day. People lived in joint families, so household chores were distributed more evenly. And like RV said, maids did a lot, such as most of the cleaning, prepwork for cooking, cleanup after cooking/dinner and the laundry. Also, kids would come home, and instead of locking themselves in their room with homework or a game console, they would help out more.
And today's women want to be supermoms- constant pressure to look beautiful and also the standards of care are higher, for instance, I don't think kids were bathed everyday whereas now it is unthinkable. Involvement with homework etc, and also there's a lot more distraction, like going online and watching TV, that tend to suck a lot of time, while getting minimal stuff done (the distractions before would be like chatting while working in the kitchen, etc)
also in a way, there are things that make chores easier, but doing them by yourself seems like a lot more than when your relative or a maid is helping out.