personally  I can fully understand that, I'd rather have the washing machine and Fridge, and suffer to go to bed when it got dark, if it was a simple choice. This is based on child-hood experience in the early 1970s in the UK.

One of my sets of grandparents never had a washing machine, but they did have electricity and it was always a great limitation and a huge waste of time when visiting them to have to wash clothes and bedsheets  in the bath (no duvets or sleeping bags - something like that could never have been dried ).  At least they had an immersion heater, so there was copious hot water without lighting the back boiler, and oddly they an inside loo, which the other set of grandparents did not, but then they had a washing machine ( and from 1975 onwards a gas boiler).

Do not under-estimate the liberation from hours of domestic drudgery that an electric  washer provides, until you have washed by hand for a week, nor the time not spent daily shopping once you have a fridge to keep stuff fresh. Add in lighting a fire for hot water and boiling the kettle, and the appeal of a few kW  at  240V or so is almost irresistible, though gas bottles are an intermediate solution.

There is the obvious problem than in most societies we might consider in need of such revolution, the effort saved is mostly that of women, and perhaps the lower classes, but the spending power to do so is mostly that of wealthier men, so it may go on bling like phones and TV first after all. 

I do recall a visit to a large Indian City in the early 2000s and the English language newspaper was trumpeting the mobile phone coverage  over the whole city but in small print on the back the drinking water programme (not very ambitious by our standard , something like a tap within 100m of every dwelling)  was running about 5 years behind plan in what we would consider to be the slum areas,  and about to be delayed again. Priorities are funny things.

However, it is not our place to force solutions onto folk who collectively do not wish them, but we really should at least be drawing attention to the art of the possible.

Mike.

personally  I can fully understand that, I'd rather have the washing machine and Fridge, and suffer to go to bed when it got dark, if it was a simple choice. This is based on child-hood experience in the early 1970s in the UK.

One of my sets of grandparents never had a washing machine, but they did have electricity and it was always a great limitation and a huge waste of time when visiting them to have to wash clothes and bedsheets  in the bath (no duvets or sleeping bags - something like that could never have been dried ).  At least they had an immersion heater, so there was copious hot water without lighting the back boiler, and oddly they an inside loo, which the other set of grandparents did not, but then they had a washing machine ( and from 1975 onwards a gas boiler).

Do not under-estimate the liberation from hours of domestic drudgery that an electric  washer provides, until you have washed by hand for a week, nor the time not spent daily shopping once you have a fridge to keep stuff fresh. Add in lighting a fire for hot water and boiling the kettle, and the appeal of a few kW  at  240V or so is almost irresistible, though gas bottles are an intermediate solution.

There is the obvious problem than in most societies we might consider in need of such revolution, the effort saved is mostly that of women, and perhaps the lower classes, but the spending power to do so is mostly that of wealthier men, so it may go on bling like phones and TV first after all. 

I do recall a visit to a large Indian City in the early 2000s and the English language newspaper was trumpeting the mobile phone coverage  over the whole city but in small print on the back the drinking water programme (not very ambitious by our standard , something like a tap within 100m of every dwelling)  was running about 5 years behind plan in what we would consider to be the slum areas,  and about to be delayed again. Priorities are funny things.

However, it is not our place to force solutions onto folk who collectively do not wish them, but we really should at least be drawing attention to the art of the possible.

Mike.