"all men have to be married"
It's optional if you want the kids. Not mandatory to beat the game.

I agree with you on the conversations. I cringed at 90% of them because it's so baddd.
The story was fun to play through though, but what I cared for the most was the maps.  

I agree that the maps are better.

The problem with the fathers thing is that I really like a lot of the children characters. They clearly had more work put into their characters. It's hard for me to pair guys to girls rather than pairing girls to guys.