"Love ... casts itself on persons who, apart from the sexual relation, would be hateful, contemptible, and even abhorrent to the lover. ... It seems as if, in making a marriage, either the individual or the interest of the species must come off badly."

You have to dredge the annals of history assiduously to find a philosopher more cynical than Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) when it came to notions about women, marriage and the birth of children. In addition to the above remark, Schopenhauer also informed us that "woman is by nature meant to obey." Though he contemplated marriage on a number of occasions, he never took the plunge. To him, happiness and marriage with children were, at best, a contradiction in terms; at worst, a delusion.

I recalled these dark remonstrations when contemplating one of Japan's — and the developed world's — most serious problems: shōshika. This means low fertility and/or a declining birthrate.