mox, if you are dismissing what chazal tell us is an essential part of Shalom Bayisby saying it is weak and by saying that we shoved 18 to chuppa under the carpet, then thank you for publicly showing everyone that this initiative of yours could care less about Shalom Bayis. Maybe we should make Rosh HaShana only 1 day, afterall we no longer follow Chazal about 18 for marriage.
LET’S NOT GET SHALOM BAYIS IN THE WAY OF SHIDDUCHIM!!! ?”?
Yes, I think you have an agenda. Strike that, I KNOW YOU HAVE AN AGENDA!! If this is the “growth rate” then it would have been the same rate years ago vis-a-vis percentages.
Let me say this simply for you:
1. You are pushing aside what Chazal say is essential for Shalom Bayis in order to create marriages. (Which in itself shows me that what you stand for is garbage)
2. You make the claim that it is weak since we are no longer the same 18 year olds that Chazal was talking about
3. You fail to mention why previous Rabbonim did not see this as an issue. (Probably, because unlike you, the word of Chazal had value in their eyes)
4. By your own admission you do not have global stats. Let me tell you something, how many more boys than girls are there of marriageable age in Lakewood, or Yerushalayim simply due to there Yeshivas being there?
5. Why should I believe you represent what the Gedolim would want when no one has said anything, and when you yourself admit to putting aside Shalom Bayis to make shidduchim?
6. By the way, just in case you try to give a revisionist account of history vis-a-vis the age gap, what was the gap between Avraham and Sarah? Yitzchak and Rivka?
Oh, and if you will play the polygamy card, which tanaim and amoraim had more than one wife?
7. As the Chasam Sofer said about the Reform Movement: ??? ???? ?? ?????
I cannot fathom telling a girl who is mature and capable she cannot get married since she is only 18.