Here are some candid thoughts from Japanese author pha on marriage and family. First, the original Japanese taken from pha's blog followed by my unofficial translation.

“家族はシェアハウスの一種に過ぎない。子どもを作ることを絶対視しすぎるのは息苦しい。家族とか結婚を絶対視して苦しむ必要はない。人間が生きる道は他にもたくさんある。

でも、家族とか結婚とかはやっぱり便利で強力なシステムだし社会的にも優遇されてるので、それをうまく利用できるなら利用したらいい。だめだったら逃げてもいいけど。

使えるものは何でも利用して生きのびよう。”

“Family is nothing more than one variety of communal living. Thinking that having kids is an absolute truth is suffocating. There’s no need to continue suffering thinking that these things like marriage and having a family are absolute. There are plenty of other paths people can take.

However, marriage and family are convenient and are a powerful system that comes with societal approval, so if you can use that to your advantage, why not? If that doesn’t pan out though it’s ok to bail.

As humans we have to make use of whatever we can to survive. ”

Not to say that I share the same perspectives as pha; I just thought that was interesting. Living in Japan I find that people here often think about marriage and family in ways that can be difficult to understand for Americans/Westerners, myself included.

pha is the author of several books including 「持たない幸福論」 and 「ニートの歩き方」which I would like to read.