Are the girls causing their own shidduch crisis??

A Woman Outside Brooklyn-

There’s a difference between so/so and outright bad. I only say no after a first date if there’s nothing to talk about. That just seems to have happened to me a number of times.

You have Rav Chaim, Rav Aharon Leib, the Skulener Rebbe, Rav Shlomo Miller, etc. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you lack world class gedolei Yisroel shlita.

For those of you who say they are in shidduchim, first let me say that just about all the ones we have been in touch with do not call and do not even respond to emails. I have daughters in their 20s in shidduchim, and beli ayin harah they are good girls with good professions. They have not had a dates in months, not even a call. They are not being picky or have some of the demands you post. It saddens me that we have to rely on shadchanim. How many does one need to work with to have at least one take any interest?

@excellence- having the same experience. maybe the moderators are on vacation:)

regarding relying on shadchanim-there is a certain monopoly based on the system. Dating sites or informal shadchanim (based on your types) can help solve that issue.

Joseph: I sincerely hope you’re joking. Besides for the inherent problems with polygamy for Jewish men, women and children, it’s illegal in most of the Western world. And we’re not even welcome in Yemen…

You lose your limited credibility here when you advocate for such radical ideas.

But then again, you are Joseph….

Polygamy may not be illegal in a couple of years. And it’s not radical. For many people it is an ancient tradition.

I have just started reading this thread, as I got a phone call from a schadchan 5 minutes ago. He said to me that he just heard I have a daughter turning 19 soon and she must be desperate for a husband.

After I finished laughing, I asked about how he got my private phone number and his background. He said he got the number from my eldest daughter-in-law. She is a cousin and he was trolling relatives for referrals. I was told that because we live out of town he will only charge $500 for an initial meeting and then negotiate a set fee for a shidduch.

I replied that I am a successful attorney and that initial consultations are always free, then if the potential client is interested, we discuss rates and sign an ‘engagement letter.’

There was dead silence and then I hears a dial tone.

There is no reason to pay a schadchan for an initial consultation. That meeting is you giving the shadchan your time at no cost to pitch his/her services.

BTW>>>My not yet 19 year old is in no hurry to find a chason. This family sends girls to get a college and professional degree after the post high school seminary experience. Her 24 year old sister is finishing law school this month, she and her chuson taking the February Bar exams, chasunah in early April and I”H joining my firm in June.

Two sons married, eldest daughter married, middle daughter engaged. Not a single one used a professional shadchan. The old boys and old girls yeshiva/seminary/summer camp network did its job well.

BTW>>>My parents met working at nearby summer camps in 1930. I met my wife in 1970 while we were working at summer camps and were fixed up by the director and his wife.

CTLAWYER, unbelievable story. That shadchan should have been the one to hear the dial tone.

DaasYochid…………..

I didn’t hang up because he is the relative of my daughter in law. Not worth causing my son a problem.

I have told the story before of how a High School rebbi called me to set me up with a girl who would be in my town for one day only–for a bris. When I finished laughing, I told my wife that my rebbi wanted to fix me up with her sister.

He didn’t know that I had married and had a son. It was more than 10 years since I’d seen him, he only knew that I was the only male he was acquainted with from my town and that this young lady was going to be there for a simcha–so he took a shot.

About 6 months later, I fixed my sister in law up with a former Yeshiva roommate of mine (now a CPA). They are B”H married more than 35 years with children and grandchildren.

A federal court in Utah has overturned the states law against it less than two years ago.

Actually, that’s not entirely true.

The courts did strike down the provisions regarding cohabitation with more than one “wife” at a time. However, the courts also upheld the restrictions on actually marrying more than one person at a time. IOW, you can live with as many women (or men) as you like, but you can only be legally married to one. If you marry another before the first marriage is dissolved, you can still find yourself charged with a crime.

The Wolf

Joseph: I don’t know why we’re even discussing this, as this is really a non issue, but I’ll humor you, so let’s see:

1) any unmarried woman here above 26 or the parent of one, please give us your vote: If polygamy were mainstream, would you consider becoming (or encourage your daughter to become) someone’s second wife? Yes or No. Please specify if you’re the parent.

2) if you are a married woman, would you allow your husband to marry another woman if polygamy were mainstream? Please vote Yes or No.

Thanks everyone. Please no trolling.

Mammele: Please note, again, my initial comment on this topic above. I suggested this mechanism be strictly limited and restricted. I did not suggest it become a widespread practice. Nor would I anticipate the vast majority of folks to consider this option to be their calling or practice. I would, indeed, very much expect most people by far to be uninterested and consider this not their thing. So a survey you conduct resulting in such results would in fact fit into my expectations.

Mammele: That all being said, I’m confident that there would be some interest and uptake in the real world on this idea from both genders. Indeed, one longtime poster on this very forum, who happened to be an older single girl, had more than once expressed support for this idea.

[Mods, I removed the reference to any individual poster.]

Mammele,

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/dont-feed-the-trolls#post-325120

Mammele: What’s your concern about the math? Suppose today the age gap (or whatever the multitudes of causes) results in 5% of girls being unable to get married due to their being a shortage of unmarried men, if the rabbonim permit 5% of girls to be a second wife, that would greatly alleviate the problem of those girls who otherwise were r”l doomed to have been unable to find someone to marry. If the percentage is 10%, then 10% could be allowed to become a sister-wife. On either of those two examples it would mean 95% or 90% of the people would still have “traditional” one-husband/one-wife relationships.

Now I’m not suggesting that this is a quick-fix that will overnight resolve the shiddduch crisis. Or that, even, the percentages of plural wives families will automatically equal the exact percentages of girls who are short a husband. But certainly it will go part of the way, or hopefully even a long way, towards helping resolve the shiddduch crisis we are experiencing regarding an imbalance of boys and girls in the market. Even a partial fix is better than none.

And as stated, this solution will need to be highly regulated by the rabbonim shlita to ensure its success both in terms of who is capable of participating in it as well as to regulate its occurrence/frequency remain in hand. But as I stated, I think there will be more of an issue of finding enough people willing and capable of participating (even though only a small percentage is needed in the first place) than a problem of having too many willing participants. But even a smaller than needed participation rate will go a long way in helping resolve the crisis.

And, again, I stress I’m not advocating a hefker velt in this or that this program be started by any Yankel or Mirel on their own. It first needs the haskama of gedolei yisroel before it can get off the ground (no one has the right to do it on their own beforehand). Even the NASI program of encouraging close in age shidduchim got the signed haskama of gedolei yisroel first. As noted the Sefardim have been doing this for centuries until very recent times and some Teimanim still have plural wives even today. I don’t think any of the children will be discriminated or feel second-class or even feel differently than other children. Children of divorced families manage in a frum world of mostly married parents.

And there have been rabbonim in the past who suggested the possibility of the current rabbonim ending the cherem is a real and serious possibility if the circumstances were right. I believe the Gra is one of the rabbonim and I know that on one of his easily available Torah tapes that Rav Avigdor Miller suggested the rabbonim could do so.

Just now reading this thread, technical i think we must have dated because i have been on dates where the girl made up her mind right away and checked out mentally and just went through the motions the rest of the date.

I think she’s far from the only one to do that.

I think that by default, there should almost always be a second date (at least) because one can’t properly rule someone out after one, as much as some think they can.

People have a really rosy idea of an ideal polygamy. I cannot think of any purely happy polygamous marriages in Tanach which didn’t contain some kind of angst due to the fact that it was polygamous (Avraham, Sarah and Hagar; Yaakov, Rachel, Leah, Bilha, Zilpa; Shlomo and his thousand wives; Elkana, Chana and Penina; the Pilegesh beGivah; etc.). The only person who is legitimately told that he can marry multiple wives- with strict regulations- is a melech Yisrael, which is possibly why Dovid’s marriage problems did not relate to his polygamy, IIRC. The prototypical marriage mentioned in halacha and in Tanach is between one man and one woman. Just because something is muttar doesn’t mean that it is a good idea. Besides, IIRC (and I could be wrong) in the time of R Gershom, the issue wasn’t with actual polygamy but with men not needing to divorce their wives in order to remarry. That’s not something we want happening again (even if we do have the heter me’ah rabbanim…).

Hey, you know what? Heter me’ah rabbanim! Put your theory to the test. Find a couple who would want a “sister wife,” find an older single who would want to marry the guy, and find 100 rabbis to sign agreement and you don’t need a whole big patchke of rescinding the whole thing.

Wolf, they are not sitting and waiting but also don’t want to start with web sites. I have asked them and have not gotten an answer why their friends from both HS and seminary who are married have no shidduch suggestions from them. It’s puzzling.

The Goq-

Actually, the only time I ever tuned out and went through the motions after 10 minutes was when the boy did it first (i.e. answered every single conversation-starter with “uh huh” and “I hear”).

DY – I don’t appreciate the hint that I have tuned out after 10 minutes, since all I said is that I can tell it’s not a shidduch after 10 minutes. I do my best to try to keep the conversation going- usually with no reciprocation from the other end.

And I have a feeling that The Goq and I could verify pretty easily that I have never dated him.

Writersoul, I don’t think the heter meah rabbanim is overriding the cherem, it’s working within it. Using it the way you suggest would be overriding it, and that’s not what the heter meah rabbonim is for.

It would fail not as a test for whether these hundred rabbonim are against polygamy, rather that it’s not within their power to even decide.

I disagree. Do you know how much effort it takes for me to get ready for a date? For a guy, yes, you do have to rent a car and figure out where to go; I’m not minimizing the difficulty of that. But for a me, my family has to clean up the house, my father needs to miss a good part of his nightly shiur, I need to do my hair and makeup and spend 2-3+ hours of my night. That’s also ignoring the emotional stress and nerves that are involved. If I did it once and there is no legitimate chance of the shidduch working out, what is the tachlis in going out a second time?

By the way, with every boy that I said no after one date, the boy said no, as well. The only exception was one boy who was 9 years older than me (I had literally just turned 20), whom I was reluctant to go out with in the first place. People told me to go out and see how it went. When I went out, I was very uncomfortable with the age difference, and I said no.

I don’t think I’m unreasonable with saying no. I’m generally a very thought-out person, and I don’t tend to be impulsive. Sometimes, there is just no shaichus in a date- which the shadchanim themselves have admitted in my case.

Do you know how much effort it takes for me to get ready for a date? For a guy, yes, you do have to rent a car and figure out where to go; I’m not minimizing the difficulty of that. But for a me, my family has to clean up the house, my father needs to miss a good part of his nightly shiur, I need to do my hair and makeup and spend 2-3+ hours of my night.

That’s not a reason to say no, that’s a bias. You implied earlier (in a post commiserating with Flatbusher) that you don’t have as many opportunities to go out as you’d like. So when you do, don’t let the difficulty get in the way of giving it every possible chance.

If I did it once and there is no legitimate chance of the shidduch working out, what is the tachlis in going out a second time?

Agreed. I’m questioning someone’s ability to properly definitively assess that after one date.

I’ve seen more than one occasion where that assessment turned out to be wrong.

Everyone uses that as a reason that shidduchim should just go on and on and on- because it “might” work out.

Maybe they’re right. Anyhow, I didn’t take it that far, I only discussed a second date.

“we had nothing to talk about and sat there in awkward silence for two hours.”

Some of those have also worked out.

And you ignored my point that every time I said no after one date, the boy did, as well.

So, he also made a mistake to say no after one date.