There is a Shidduch crisis going on….like bpt commented…
unless you have a child, niece, nephew, sibling, friend that’s in the parsha you might not have a clue as to the crisis.
There are families with older children not yet married, there are families with 3 or 4 daughters in a row dealing with making shidduchim. What’s changed from the European Shtetl and even the years leading up to the mid-1990’s is that the dynamics changed.
Once upon a time before college (touro..etc)or higher education was introduced, the average yeshiva boy and bais yaakov girl (or similar)finished their Jewish schooling and got married…it was more of an insular world. Both were more naive and simple in the ways of the world. Also, the average class size in a frum Yeshiva back then was 25 kids. Today, each grade has at least 4 classes each with over 100 students per grade. (In the shtetl it was a miracle if your large family survived, many children died from dieseases that did not have a cure or pennicillin needed)
With the advent of college, girls are not so naive anymore. They have higher education, became more worldly, have college degrees, had a taste of the working world $$$. Boys have become more materialistic, wanting only beautiful skinny girls and finding a Father-in-law to support. Whereas, once upon a time the word DIET and MANICURES did not exist and plenty girls who were a higher size than size 4 and were not necessarily all “farputzed”, were Boruch Hashem all married bec. the Bochurim were more simple and did not have a criteria list up to the moon back then. We have now also added the many descriptive categories of backgrounds that did not exist once upon a time…like…Yeshivish, Yeshivish-modern, Yeshivish-with a college degree, Litvish with same above descriptions…white shirt, colored shirts…Kollel, Working boy etc.
Bais Yaakov, Bais Yaakov with college degree, Bais Yaakov-modern etc…These lists have added more pressure to the Parsha of Shidduchim. May Hakodosh Boruch Hu bless all of Klal Yisroel who are in need of Shidduchim to find their right Zivug BKOROV!