Because until relatively recent years (1 or 2 centuries ago) with medical advances, many women died at childbirth. Including in the paleolithic era. So I assume that the law of nature was originally that men generally outlive women.
What exactly do you mean by “law of nature?”
Women may have had a high rate of death in childbirth. However, under paleolithic and neolithic conditions men would also have had a very high mortality rate due to the hazards of hunting (e.g. mammoths and aurochs) and conflict with neighboring groups. There is no reason to suppose that females would have had a much higher mortality rate.
There are no laws and supposed-tos in nature. The maternal death rate got very high in the 19th century, but if overwhelming numbers of women had been dying in childbirth throughout history it would’ve been hard for our species to survive. Cite here: Maternal death - Wikipedia
And I think you’re also misunderstanding the statistics here. Historically many women died in childbirth, but that affects the average lifespan for women - not how long they’re “supposed” to live. And while women faced the risk of dying in childbirth, men are generally more prone to risky behavior and violence, which shortens their expected lifespans. In fact boys outnumber girls at birth, perhaps because fewer of them will survive to reproduce. Overall men and women have pretty similar lifespans.
Nature doesn’t exactly have a constitution and a court to rule on her laws. It’s certainly true that modern medicine has vastly extended the average lifespan of women, but that doesn’t mean that men are “supposed” to outlive women.
That said, for a species to gain a foothold in the ecosystem, reproductive success is the goal: a tiny tribe of homo sapiens would have to have increased its size with each generation to gain a spot near the top of the food chain. That longer male lifespan probably made our current existence possible, since a man has almost unlimited reproductive potential, whereas women are limited to (usually) one child every 9 months and 15 minutes from menarche through menopause. (Okay, realistically more like every 9 months, two years, and 15 minutes, since nursing typically depresses fertility for the duration.)
So, no laws broken, because Mother Nature doesn’t follow laws.
“Supposed to” requires someone to do the supposing. Who exactly supposes this so-called “natural law”?
The maternal death rate in the 19th century was artificially high due to various reasons. I made a thread once asking what the rate of maternal death in childbirth would be with no medical intervention and while I don’t remember the exact figure it was much lower than you’d think.
What I’m saying is that 19th century maternal death rates were artificially high.
EDIT:Here it is:
Mmmm…I think you’re confusing averages with individuals. If we had a population where half the women died in childbirth, and NONE of the men ever said, “Hang on to my beer…watch this!” then yes, taken as an average, the average mean lifespan (add up everyone’s age at the time they died and divide by the number of people) would be higher for men.
But as individuals, no. If a woman survived childbirth, then she would probably live a few years longer than the men. So half your women (in our hypothetical population) will outlive the men, even though the “average” lifespan of men is longer.
In reality, after all the accidents and trauma of youth and middle age are accounted for, elder women are expected to live a couple of years longer than elder men.
[QUOTE=http://www.ssa.gov/planners/lifeexpectancy.htm]
A man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 84.
A woman turning age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 86.
[/QUOTE]
In the real world, historically, not as many women died in childbirth as novels and the anti-midwifery movement would have you think.If you look at these tables, you’ll see that even with the effects of childbirth influencing the number in the fertile years, women of any age can, generally, expect to live 6 months to 2 years longer than their male age mates, at least as long as they’ve been keeping records.
So, no, if anything, I’d say your hypothesis is the inverse of reality. Women are expected to outlive men, and the risks of childbirth (even childbirth without the marvels of modern medicine) do not alter that.