CMV: Based on the plummeting birth rates in most developed nations we can safely say women throughout history have had *far* more children then they wanted and when they actually have a choice, they choose less
Much like pringles, the rule for birth rates prior to the 20th century was “once you pop, you can’t stop!” I don’t even know how its arguable. Before the over-the-counter birth control revolution in America in the 60’s and 70’s men took for granted that their wives would have kids until they couldn’t anymore. Especially catholic families. Sex was a right of the husband and, whether they planned it or not, pregnancy was a common side effect of that right. Hence the families with like, 14 kids. That meant at minimum the husband and wife had sex 14 times. Maybe the only sessions in their marriage and each session produced a child. But it was a given that the risk was always there.
With contraception women for the first time had an easy, relative to what was available in the past, option to not only gain some semblance of control over their sexual lives and bodies and unsurprisingly when they did they decided they wanted a far less children to take care of