A Passage to India - Thoughts over Children

Aziz and Fielding's relationship is a healthy enjoyable one that truly inspires as well as saddens due its intrinsically tragic inevitability. The following is a bonding moment of many; Aziz is baffled by the lack of acepted tradition in Fielding's character:

'Aziz after another silence said, 'Why are you not married?'
Fielding was pleased that he had asked. 'Because I have more or less come through without it...The lady i liked wouldn't marry me - that is the main point, but that's fifteen years ago and now means nothing.'
'But you haven't children.'
'None.'
'Excuse the following question: have you any illegitimate children?'
'No. I'd willingly tell you if i had.'
'Then your name will entirely die out.'
'It must.'
'Well.' He shook his head. 'This indifference is what the Oriental will never understand.'
'I don't care for children.'
'Caring has nothing to do with it,' he said impatiently.
'I don't feel their absence, I don't want them weeping around my deathbed and being polite about me afterwards, which I believe is the general notion. I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children. No obligation, with England getting so chock-a-block and overrunning India for jobs.' - 130