Hi Stevenson101, I find your comment to be quite amusing, but why
should you think I would want to lynch you ?
You are quite right to say that most in the First World
industrialized nations seem to be having this problem of singles
and small families, and that it is not solely a Singaporean
experience.
Surprisingly, even in Mainland China, especially in the urban
areas, this trend is becoming very common too, and China is not
exactly a First World country as yet at least not by the same
measure.
Somehow modern day living seems to become more burdensome then in
the days of the traditional agricultural or simple trading days (as
in Singapore during the early 1950s).
The cost of living maybe affecting the decisions to stay single for
most people even up to middle age; while the thought of being
bound by the responsibilities of a relationship seems to be quite
daunting, especially when couples tend to change in character after
the romance has worn itself out in the grind of everyday married
life.
In Singapore today, it is quite common to have small private
wedding receptions amongst close friends and relatives, with large
wedding dinners being done away with; although in some families,
the maintaining of face require a grand dinner party to be held
to make a public announcement of the coming of age of the wedded
couple.
The grooms parents in most Chinese families; will pay for the
lavish dinners; while in the Eurasian and Caucasian families, the
brides side will pay the dinners.
Many wedding couples today will dispense away with such lavish
dinners if their parents do not pay for it, and with whatever
savings they have made, the wedding couple would prefer to spend on
a honeymoon and build their new home.
Single child family, or no child family, can be attributed mostly
to the occupational demands placed on the career women, while it
can also be due to the hardship factor of a lower income
family.
Surprisingly enough, many couples are also having problems in
procreation, due to physical constraints that result in fertility
problems, with some being caused by job stress, post-marital
tensions, diet, or simple malfunction of the reproductive
organs.
This is sad, and in some instances in-vitro assistance do not seem
to be of any help.
It is little wonder that SM LKY had said that his greatest mistake
is probably to protect Women's Rights with the Women's Charter;
thus depriving some single women from ever experiencing motherhood
as a second wife or mistress of some successful person who can
afford to do so.
(N.B: Others have disputed the Women's Charter as being derogatory
of the Singapore Women - read some articles printed in "Escape from
Paradise");
