“R’l! First, “just meeting” is the way of animals and goyim. Animals are okay with it but the goyim have used it to turn their society into a wasteland, Hashem spare us. Second, carefully researched shidduchim are as old as the Avos, do our children have better judgment “just meeting” than Avrohom Avinu did?”
That first sentence is a little harsh, and a bit hysterical, as well. Many non-Jews meet through introductions (on-line matchmaking) today. They have a wasteland, because that is how many choose to live. They did the same thing when they were introduced solely by marchmakers, or to people whom their parents picked out for them.
Shidduchim had to be researched by the Avos (and it really was ONLY Avraham Avinu anyway)because kids had no say in ANYTHING. Fathers basically arranged their children’s marriages. Like it or not. Our children WOULD have better judgment, were they allowed to grow up and act like the adults they purport to be.
Most kids today are PLAYING at getting married. They have little or no real concept of what marriage really entails, the give and take, the need to be flexible and roll with the punches, the need to do without when you cannot afford something. They buy into the glamour of the “idea” of marriage, when all they are really doing is playing house (something they should have done when they were toddlers and still knew it was all pretend).
Other kids are a little more mature and do have better judgment than one would think. They have a value system that is way more shayach than what kind of tablecloth their mother uses, or whether or not the kallah got the right size engagement ring. Getting married is for the purpose of building a bayis ne’eman b’Yisroel, and not to show off what kind of shower presents the kallah got, if she got pearls in the yichud room, and if her chosson is the “best boy” in the yeshivah.
Moshe Rabbeinu met his wife at the well, so did Yaakov Avinu. I don’t hear anyone criticizing them for not going through a shadchan, or chalilah comparing them to those whom you mentioned in your first sentence.