“Weirdly enough, this is one of the rationales the Chinese have on these huge billboards justifying mandatory abortions (after the first child).”
I just read an article that there is such an imbalance of males through “selective” abortions that there are more than 30 million who are marrying age with not enough wives to go around...
I don't think it's such a huge problem. More and more, East Asian societies without this gender imbalance are staying single. Anyone who wants to get married will be able to get a spouse, provided he has the financial means to do so. The problem is that the trend towards the single life is becoming epidemic throughout East Asia (except for the Muslim portions, which are breeding like rabbits). For instance, in Japan:
Most single Japanese women prefer not to marry and believe they can live happily alone for the rest of their life, a poll showed Friday, casting another shadow on the future of a country plagued by a falling birthrate.
About seven in ten single Japanese women surveyed by the conservative Yomiuri newspaper said they would rather stay unwed.
Prior to the adoption of Western-style laws banning polygamy and bond slavery roughly a century ago (together with the collapse of the last declared Chinese dynasty), Chinese men had it far worse. Rich men hoovered up a good chunk of the available women, and bottom strata pretty much had to make do with renting by the hour.