Go visit an old grave yard and look at the dates on the headstones.
Of course survivability wasn’t the only reason, but it certainly was one. Old age without living children was once dreaded.
But it seems you’re just fine with someone spouting how amazing it once was that mankind survived at all pre modern medicine.
Says the one spouting about death “gauntlets” as a reason to produce.
Maybe, just maybe, they were conceived out of love.