Past societies had classes, so conditions were very different depending on the class you belonged to. If you were a Roman patriarch you were expected not to work at all. Same if you were a 17th century French aristocrat.

The promise of the modern society was that everyone being "equal", we would all become aristocrats. In fact we all became slaves.

(And of course, hunters gatherers lived, to the best of our knowledge, in classless groups where each individual worked very little each day).