I think religion may have played an important role in the decrease of breastfeeding exclusivity and duration. In older times (say 16-1700's) the upperclass ladies would use wetnurses, not only to ''protect their breasts'', but also for the purpose of having more children to ensure the heritage.
For lower class people christian churches pressed women to have as many children as possible.The pastor would visit a family when not another child was born a year after the last one. People were very poor, not very healthy and women had up to or even more than 20 children! Many of whom would die ofcourse. This could not have been possible if each of these children was exclusively breastfed for 6 months and frequently up to one year and occasionnally thereafter. And indeed babies would get paps and gruwels from early ages on, when at the same time feedings at the breast were spaced widely. So, many grandmothers and greatgrandmothers of modern moms didn't have any milk at 6 weeks, some even reached 3 months. 

Warmly,
Gonneke
Dutch IBCLC, living in Germany, teaching in Belgium

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