obviously people stayed up at night before the invention of electric lighting (there is a reason we call it burning the midnight oil!). People generally howeve

obviously people stayed up at night before the invention of electric lighting (there is a reason we call it burning the midnight oil!). People generally however, didn't have open fires in their houses. For one thing, in the middle east, the southern mediterranian, India, and southern china, you don't need to burn fuel for heat. An open fire is also an inefficient way of heating a houser. People used enclosed ceramic or metal stoves, or put screens in front of open hearths to prevent energy from being lost as light. Also, while cutting wood isn't terribly time conusming, much of europe, particularly in the south and east, and almost all of central, southern, and western asia lacks good wood to burn for a fire! People, especially the poor, needed to conserve firewood for cold days, when they needed to be active, and couldn't bundle under covers