How many of those eras did women have access to very effective birth control, or the ability to say no to sex (or simply opt out of entering into a relationship with a man for her future security)?
When you frame it this way, you're telling me that given the choice women would not want to have children which means there's nothing wrong with our declining fertility rates. People simply don't want children anymore.
It is not that simple. At any given time, there are probably numerous factors affecting a woman's decision of whether or not to want children. Maybe lots of women do, but they are unable to secure their requisite lifestyle. Maybe lots of women have an unreasonable requirement of their lifestyle after having kids.
All I know is having seen my wife give birth twice, I am not in a position to judge. It is an enormous risk and sacrifice, the likes of nothing that I (as a man living in a peaceful society) have come close to having to make.
More like the woman is expected to shoulder a burden that normally took a few people working and being paid not that long ago.
Even with modern technology helping, it's quite a bit.
Domestic service takes effort! Doing that and childcare 100% is hard too plus there's the small problem of not earning money which makes the "traditional" (actually imagined) family structure untenable.
And we cannot go back when villages don't exist and people do not have generationally recognized neighbors.
We could try to begin rebuilding that structure at high cost...
