Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

Bohannon tells the story of an old woman who lived in Jericho over 8,500 years ago. She helps deliver her granddaughter’s baby but soon discovers that the infant is coming out foot first. She recalls how dangerous the breeched births she has seen were, with both mother and baby dying in one case and the baby surviving but the mother dying in another case. She places her hand into her granddaughter’s body.

Bohannon describes menopause and its mark of the end of a female person’s fertility. The impact menopause has on a person’s body is so drastic because the ovaries and their associated sex hormones play an important role in every aspect of the female body. She asks why nature would have an otherwise healthy female person stop being fertile once she reaches a certain age.

She hypothesizes that nature must end female fertility earlier than male fertility so that they can take on the role of the grandmother. Menopause may have been meant to create grandmothers to care for the children. These grandmothers would provide free childcare for mothers and dote on the children, as is a common experience children have with their grandmothers. She notes that there are many species in which there are non-reproducing members who help care for the young, such as worker ants.