I want to bring up something I know from experience. I think a lot of the issue is the shadchanim. You may be redt shidduchim from friends and acquaintances. Great! those are the best because they know you better than the shadchanim. However the shadchanim have limited scale. They will focus on
1. Those who call them constantly and are in their faces.
2.Those who are wealthy or well connected.
If you were in business you would want to prioritize your business to the best bang for your buck, those that pay and those that give you a great name- a name brand family gives a shadchan a huge boost of recognition.
So as a parent with kids in Shidduchim (a boy) I get the ‘sponsored’ names. and those handful or so of names keep coming up again and again from all the shadchanim. Its almost like you know whose resume they are going to send- and they make it sound like ‘I have the best one perfect for your son’ meanwhile the girl is being pushed by several shadchanim. Its weird but I’m thinking that if there truly is a shidduch crisis I shouldn’t be hearing the same 20-30 names from everyone. Where are all the girls that are out there? There’s only a pool of 50 names that keep being brought up again & again?
So who is batting for the average regular person? only those who care to get them married and have the knack or ability to find the appropriate shidduch. Not easy to find, add to that unrealistic parents who are not sure what they want or know EXACTLY what they want find it hard to say yes to someone. It can be a girl or boy with some issues, or find it hard to say yes to someone (too picky!) or find it easy to say no to someone (drops too often) or who have a hard time making such a monumental decision (and it is! Its a lifetime! you don’t want to marry the wrong person, break a shidduch or worse get divorced!), this all complicates the shidduch process.
Now I would speculate (and I may be wrong) that the ‘sponsored’ parents are either
1. calling the shadchanim every week and pressuring them.
2. paying a fee for them to be on the top of the pile’.
So I suggest the following: if you have a girl of age, think about it. You have to support her now-somewhat. You need to marry her off and that costs $$. You sent her to some seminary in Israel that cost you an arm and a leg that you could not afford for only GD knows why, because if you don’t send her to Israel it mean she’s a ‘cripple’- because why else would any normal girl NOT go to a seminary that costs 30K (aren’t we all dying to support these places of privilege). So isn’t it worth a little more to send a shadchan or 2 a couple of dollars so you can get your name on top of the stack?
I’m just saying that the reality of the crisis is that your names are not coming through its not because the guy is 23-24. Nice try Nasi project trying to brainwash parents to marrying their son off before he is ready. (if he’s ready at 21 you don’t need nasi and if he’s not just because some guy with money wants everyone to get married at 21 for some stupid reason that won’t get me to marry my son off a day before he’s ready). I’m a parent and know my child better than Nasi so don’t push people to do something wrong for their child because you think you are GD and need to marry all frum girls & boys off- the Gomorrah talks about some rich women that started one of those campaigns that didn’t end well.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea for those askanim to employ shadchanim that are willing to work for the average girls who don’t get press. Perhaps there are people that have talent with shidduchim where They are employed and can make a living wage to specifically work for those who don’t have the ability to get to the ‘celebrity’ shadchanim.