Mudbouter, 54

If there is one thing women (and men) have been reminded all along late childhood and early adolescence, all the way through the beginning of adult age, and over the last throes of fumbling youth, is that one is to endeavor oneself to the creation, keeping and self-attachment to the so-called basic constituent unit of society, the family. Of course, the very concept of this meager version of a tribal clan hinges on the implicit (and sometimes, violently mandatory) mandate of procreation. At its very hardcore, child -bearing is no more than any other form of self-imposed yoke (nowadays, fortunately, we may speak of self-imposition, not that long ago it was plainly a matter of social approval or the ugly prospect of becoming a quasi-cursed social outcast). That little funny book, the bible, was admonishing enough in its condemnation of the barren woman; other no less sacred and no less funny texts express similar views. Currently, religious burden has been widely replaced, at least in the West, by the burden of guilty selfishness, by the outraged accusation of one being indecent enough to try and lead a hedonistic lifestyle by ruling out the possibility of offspring.
I remember reading, eons ago, a ridiculously prudish article spitting hatred on the thinking of Jean Paul Sartre (for the wrong reasons, not that he was the infallible kind of intellectual post-modernity has molded out of the clay of neo-nineteenth century scavengers). The author shared his offended awe at the fact that Sartre had decided, at the tender age of ten, that there was no god. At about the same age, I had already made up my mind on a far less cosmic topic: I did not want, and still do not, to have children. That did not, and still does not, mean I loathe people who do; but, as in the case of gay marriage, those who seem to be perfectly happy with their personal choices are repulsed by the idea of someone else being equally perfectly happy with the opposite one.