I remember once reading that before modern medicine, 1/4 of pregnancies ended in death to the mother due to the baby's size. That would certainly explain why women don't take mating lightly.
"The historical level of maternal deaths is probably around 1 in 100 births." However: "Mortality rates reached horrible proportions in maternity institutions in the 1800s, sometimes climbing to 40 percent of birthgiving women."
"Also, the life expectancy for women was lower throughout history than it was for men; because, until the advent of modern medicine, one in four women died in childbirth."
I had heard this statistic originally in some atheist propaganda video, hilariously enough.
