They'd want to have sex, and contraception was unavailable or too expensive.
replyWomen don't want to have sex?
replyIt's relatively recent that women are able to make that decision, or to reliably make the decision of whether sex is related to reproduction.
replyOften less, and it's more "expensive" to them in a no-contraceptives world because men don't get pregnant, and they (historically?) also had an unfavorable "workload/child" burden compared to the husband in general.
replyWomen don't necessarily want to have children... You don't have to plant seed in the field every time you plow it.
replyAlso women's choice and reasoning behind mates tends to be different from the male section algorithm.
I don't know why, but quite a lot of men I know and even more that I read about seem to be obsessed with wanting kids more than any stereotypical chick brimming with estrogens would. They would totally divorce their wives if they hadn't given them children. I don't know how many of them dream of becoming a patriarch like them biblical people or something, but this is what it is /shrug
replyWhy don't you ask a woman about that?
replyWhile you're at it, look up who invented the (manually powered) chainsaw in ~1785.