The Importance of Heirs
No matter how large a company grows, it is a family business in the broad sense. In such an environment, the heir is especially important. The heir can be an utter fool or utterly out of touch, but there must be one. With one, those around you won't move against you, because taking you down wouldn't put money in their pockets. Without one, those around you will certainly move against you—because once you're gone, the money ends up in their pockets.
Wealthy people have a strong urge to have many children because of a very simple principle. It is far easier to split your wealth among N children and pass it down over a lifetime than to let a single child inherit everything and pass it down for N lifetimes.
As a middle-income earner, even if you feel you don't need marriage, you still need a long-term partner you can trust. Marriage itself may be unreliable, but relationships outside marriage are even less reliable. Once married, you'll find that without a shared child, maintaining a lasting trust-based relationship is unrealistic. A long-lasting marriage isn't one without conflict; it's one where both parties overlook each other's faults for the sake of their shared child (the heir). So in practice, middle-income people trade a portion of their income in exchange for a trusted relationship and a clear line of succession.
Otherwise, after you turn 60 with neither a spouse nor children, your situation becomes awkward. The only people around you will be those calculating how to profit from you—simply because you're old and everyone knows your time is limited.
For a low-income person, having a spouse gives you something to look forward to in life; having a child gives you something to aspire toward.
You're not managing your spouse's expectations or your children's expectations. Rather, you use your spouse and children to shape the expectations of a much broader circle around you.
Suppose you have three male subordinates with identical skills and seniority, all around 40: A is married with children, B is married but childless, and C is unmarried. If you're promoting, your first choice is A, second choice is B, and C is off the table altogether. Eastern and Western companies are fundamentally different kinds of organizations, and the true definitions of chairman and general manager differ as well. The rules of the game are simply different. Those who truly understand this reap the benefits; if you don't, you'll keep running into walls.
Others will always judge what kind of person you are based on your past choices, which means you can anticipate their anticipation of you.