I think this is an intresting question, and one which I have pondered, along with "what happened before formula was invented, and why can noone remember, because it wasn't so long ago?".
I won't even go into my own experience, because I have no particular feelings on however anyone chooses to feed their babies, and have hoped never to make anyone feel they were making a wrong choice. I had my own difficulties with both.
However, once upon a time, babies and mothers died ALOT because of childhood illness, bad water, difficult births - all this is given. Did children die because they could not be fed properly? Most likely they did.
Clearly there has always been an issue with how you feed your babies, and perhaps there has been for a long time. Even Mozart lost babies because it was frowned upon to feed them milk, and therefore many babies were fed upon sugar water and nothing else. (!) Rich people, as has been mentioned, had wet nurses. Is this because of a class issue about breast feeding? Or was it because rich mothers did not want to go through the emotional and physical difficulties of breastfeeding, and didn't have to?
If it was a class issue, is this somehow related to some underlying "British" problem we have with b/f (I do think the Victorians had a lot to answer for in modern thinking!). NOT, I hasten to add the difficulties in doing so, but the problems some people have integrating b/f into everyday life with other people, public places, family, husbands etc?
Are we all so keen to "get our lives back" once our babies are born, that we want our babies to be fed by other people so we can gain a sense of self again. I think this is a particular cultural issue that stems from a very materialistic and selfish upbringing that everyone in this day and age has been brought up to expect as a personal right. I am not saying it's wrong per se, just that's sometimes how cultures change. We are surrounded by images of the things we are told we want and need, the things we feel we are missing from our lives. Sometimes having children puts everything into perspective, but sometimes it causes us to have another path of materialistic greed to follow. Sales of children's designer wear, copious pointless toys, expensive pushchairs and so forth.
It was only a generation or so ago, that formula was hailed as the best thing since sliced bread. My mother never even gave b/f a thought - because it was no longer something you did!
But, when we live in a country where for the magority heating, clean water, medical care, general personal comfort is a given is it no wonder that we should not have to suffer to feed our babies, when we can ensure they are given the next best thing? And why not? I sometimes think b/f is hankered after as yet another sign of social standing.
Feeding babies is a primal urge, and whatever route we take, it is ensuring our babies are fed, happy, contented which drives all mothers, whichever feeding route they take. It has to be looked at in context with a whole bunch of other social and economic factors, as most of these seemingly simple questions are.
Bimely. I can burble on somewhat can't I?