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it might be a good idea for girls to wear very little, light makeup, so when their husbands actually see their clean face they’re not so surprised. i actually knew my husband before i dated him so he had seen me without makeup first.
wev’e been married for quite a while, i have grown up kids. a few years ago we were on vacation together. he asked me what took me so long to get ready in the a.m. i said i have to put on my make up. he said why do you need make up ? i had to laugh becuz he actually didnt realize that my everyday face was with makeup. thats whaT I MEAN BY LIGHT MAKEUP, SO YOU CAN HARDLY TELL BUT IT DOES WHAT IT HAS TO.
binahyeseira – “Health – yes. i understand your point, but my point was: how would you know what they look like without make-up – most girls try to look their best when going on a date.”
By going out with someone you met without a date. Eg.- classmate, neighbor, anywhere that’s a casual situation. I know, some people will never go out of their house without makeup, but in these cases you can usually tell. It’s not possible to cover up totally.
My 2 cents:
Contrary to a previous post, the Avos HaKedoshim were not makpid on looks. Avrohom Aveinu did not even notice Sorah’s beauty until they went to Mitzrayim, Yitzchak Aveinu met Rivkah after the Shidduch had been made, and Yaakov Aveinu clearly felt that the Shidduch with Rochel was Bashert.
The Bobover Rebbe ZY”A was quoted as saying, “people look for 6 things in a shidduch. 3 are irrelevant, 3 are indespensible.
The 3 that are irrelevant are money,looks and yichus; the 3 that are indespensable are middos, middos and middos”.
Having said that, I certainly agree that spouses need to be attracted to each other, and men in particular may still have a strong nisayon. The Gemora makes it clear that this is a most powerful Yetzer Hora.
Bump
Curious as to why you bumped this, lightbrite.
In any case, my opinion is:
I would never want to marry the kind of guy who is too into looks. Obviously, he needs to be attracted to me, but I would want to marry someone who likes me because of my ruchnius qualities. 1) because that’s the real me and what I want my husband to appreciate about me. 2) because I don’t want to marry someone superficial.
RebDoniel:
“To me, at least, there are very few girls that are “ugly.” To me, each and every bas yisroel is beautiful in her own way, and what is attractive to me is a girl’s desire to treat her husband well, her desire to raise children that are ehrliche yidden and proper young men and ladies, and and her middos. I want an aidel maidel and a girl that shares my principles and Torah middos. This is what is beauty to me. A beautiful interior makes for a beautiful exterior.”
+1
I heard a story about a boy who went out with a girl and told his Rosh Yeshiva that he didn’t want to go out again because she wasn’t pretty. His Rosh Yeshiva told him that he’s a “kofer” because Chazal say that all bnos Yisrael are pretty.
“Listen, you cant have brains and looks.”
Why not? I do. Humility too.
I don’t remember for sure. I think I googled something last night and then it linked to this page. Or maybe I searched the CR for shidduchim and found this one.
I heard a story about a boy who went out with a girl and told his Rosh Yeshiva that he didn’t want to go out again because she wasn’t pretty. His Rosh Yeshiva told him that he’s a “kofer” because Chazal say that all bnos Yisrael are pretty.
Chazal also tell us that it is forbidden for a man to marry a
woman before seeing her, “??? ???? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ????.”
About 30 years ago, R’ Hershel Schachter was asked this question and he answered that one does not have to marry a girl who he doesn’t think he is pretty just to be able to say SHEKER HACHEIN VHEVEL HAYOFI with kavanah. The girl has to be pretty in the eyes of the boy EVEN IF others don’t think she is pretty.
Iacisrmma – I think the issue here is someone who is “very makpid on looks” as the OP put it. I think there are boys for whom the looks seems to be the main thing that matters to them (and they “need” a specific look and only 1-10% of all girls fulfill their requirements) and then there are boys for whom the girls’ looks is not the main thing they are looking for in a wife but they obviously can’t marry someone whom they don’t think is pretty.
Also if someone has their priorities right, then I would think that whether or not they consider someone attractive will involve the person’s personality and middos as much as her looks. Okay, I realize that I am a girl so it’s different. But I do know boys like that, so it’s clearly possible for a boy to be that way.
Also, usually when boys are makpid on looks, they are davka into thinness. This comes from society and is not something natural or objective. ( think this may have been pointed out already in this thread.
Also, there is a difference between saying that you can’t marry someone whom you feel is ugly and saying that you only want to marry someone super-gorgeous. (unless of course your definition of super-gorgeous is based on middos, personality and Yiras Shamayaim).
lu: It is hard for me to figure out what the OP was thinking when he/she asked the question 5 years ago.
“Also, usually when boys are makpid on looks, they are davka into thinness.”
Actually, most of the time it is not the boys who are makpid but the boys mothers who are the fanatics about their precious son marrying someone who is thin (although their own daughters are not size 2 or 4).
I do agree with you that there are men who only want a “supermodel”. I personally was not that way since I am no “Cary Grant”. My children are in the shidduch parsha and I do not ask for a picture of the person my child will be dating.
To the inexperienced bochur, I can only give a simple piece of advice. Whatever preconceived notions there are about “beauty”, nothing is relevant to how you will live your life. All aspects of appearance are subject to change. It is a grave mistake to base the emotional relationship on anything even remotely related to the looks of a girl. The relevance actually works the other way. If the emotional connection develops and grows, that person will have beauty.
The prevailing notions about beauty are culturally determined, and these involve standards of tznius (even that which is limited to imagery) that are not appropriate for a bochur. It is silly to have Hollywood determine such standards as it is to follow all of Western society’s norms. We look to Torah for guidance, not the street. This is a basic piece of education that is taught by example and by having lifestyles that ignore these “cultural norms” as determinants of our behavior.
The Little I know +1!
Also if someone has their priorities right, then I would think that whether or not they consider someone attractive will involve the person’s personality and middos as much as her looks. Okay, I realize that I am a girl so it’s different. But I do know boys like that, so it’s clearly possible for a boy to be that way.
Also, usually when boys are makpid on looks, they are davka into thinness. This comes from society and is not something natural or objective.
I was trying to find something about the latter, and Google put
up a quotation from Wikipedia relevant to this whole discussion:
“Interpersonal attraction, the process, is distinct from perceptions of physical attractiveness, which involves views of what is and is not considered beautiful or attractive.”
Also, there’s a study (P. W. Eastwick and E.J. Finkel, ’08) which found that
“[D]ata revealed no [gender] differences in the associations between participants’ romantic interest in real-life potential partners (met during and outside of speed dating) and the attractiveness and earning prospects of those partners. Furthermore, participants’ ideal preferences, assessed before the speed-dating event, failed to predict what inspired their actual desire at the event. Results are discussed within the context of R. E. Nisbett and T. D. Wilson’s (1977) seminal article*: Even regarding such a consequential aspect of mental life as romantic-partner preferences, people may lack introspective awareness of what influences their judgments and behavior.
So it seems that most if not all people, both male and female,
are that way, and may be even if they don’t think they are.
(If you’re interested in the exact details of the study, though,
you’ll have to pay the APA 11.95 for the privilege of reading it.)
*I looked it up. It sounds interesting, too:
Nisbett, Richard, & Wilson, Timothy. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231-259.
Although people can usually produce an explanation for their behavior, that explanation may not be accurate because people do not have direct introspective access to many (if not most) of their mental processes. “Telling more than we can know” refers to a potential problem with using self-report methods to study mental processes: Participants may be telling the experimenter more than they could be expected to know about themselves. Nisbett and Wilson review several studies that provide evidence supporting this claim. The basic methodology in these studies is to experimentally manipulate the cause of a participant’s behavior, ask the participant to explain their behavior, and find that the participant produces an explanation that does not involve the experimental manipulation.
This article is considered a classic in social psychology and foreshadowed contemporary research on automatic processing.
Comlink, that sounds a lot like Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink.
Even when we think we know how we’re making decisions, our brains can outsmart us.
Which makes a lot of the carefully modulated ideas about how to choose the ideal spouse when we’re dating, go out the window when we’re actually on a date.
Hence our traditional way of handling things? 🙂
I would like very much to agree with you Comlink, and to answer in one word-
Yes
But I’ve heard there are riots going on all over the USA, and I don’t want to start one here in the CR.
” His Rosh Yeshiva told him that he’s a “kofer” because Chazal say that all bnos Yisrael are pretty. “
___________________________________
“Chazal also tell us that it is forbidden for a man to marry a
woman before seeing her, “??? ???? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ????.” “
That statement of Chazal is talking about a person’s preference, not an objective evaluation. The wording is “perhaps he will see something disparaging….”. It’s talking about his perceptions and nothing objective about her.
She may be beautiful, but there may be something that he does not like.
Comlinksx – thanks for the research and info! That is good to know. I’m glad to know that most people are not as superficial as they may seem.
I have one issue though with that. If I understand the quotes you are saying quoting correctly, it sounds like whether or not someone likes someone is not based on looks, but it has definitely happened that I have gone out with guys whom I could tell right away whether or not they liked me as soon as they saw me, before I even opened up my mouth. So that would seem to be a contradiction. However, it could be that that was only the case in the minority of situations.
I am thinking as I am writing this that it is not so good if the first thing someone “sees” about you is the way you look. That could be a reason to have a long first phone call.
“If I understand the quotes you are saying quoting correctly, it sounds like whether or not someone likes someone is not based on looks”.
I doubt that’s their conclusion. Nobody in their right mind would say looks don’t affect romantic interest. It’s hard to say what they meant without reading the rest though.
“but it has definitely happened that I have gone out with guys whom I could tell right away whether or not they liked me as soon as they saw me, before I even opened up my mouth”
That’s why I think it’s a good idea for both boys and girls to start a date with a smile and not a long examining look.
lilmod ulelamaid: What if their initial attraction or unattraction was based on whether you looked like his mom?
“Why Your Partner May Be Like Your Parent”
I wonder if somehow the whole “makpid on looks” might be a subconscious attraction to a bochur’s/bochurah’s mother/father. Though that would mean more than a physical 10.
(I took out what I assumed you found an issue, mods – I don’t see
why you’d leave up what I was responding to with it, though…)
The point was that “interpersonal attraction… is distinct from
perceptions of physical attractiveness,” but that doesn’t mean the
latter plays no part in the former (by the way, the concept of
“interpersonal attraction” includes what makes us want to be friends with people as well). Whether someone – of either gender – is good-looking will usually affect our attitude toward them not only as a potential spouse, but in general (leading to results such as making more money and fewer jury convictions for minor crimes).
The other quotation could use some clarification.
(I’m doing it backwards because it’s easier that way.)
Furthermore, participants’ ideal preferences, assessed before the speed-dating event, failed to predict what inspired their actual desire at the event.
That is: What people said they were looking for (in terms of
looks and earning potential) didn’t match up with the people
in whom they were interested after actually meeting them.
“[D]ata revealed no [gender] differences in…
That is: The above phenomenon was not found more among the men
or the women in the study – they were equal in this matter.
The last 2 lines of my previous post were not the actual
explanation of that section. I apologize for the error.
(I should’ve realized that the latter part of a statement shouldn’t be
able to stand alone, with the first part merely referring to it…)
[D]ata revealed no [gender] differences in the associations between participants’ romantic interest in real-life potential partners (met during and outside of speed dating) and the attractiveness and earning prospects of those partners.
That is: When they looked at whether interest in someone after meeting them matched up with the looks and earning potential of the people in question (that is, did people who were more attractive and/or had higher-earning-ability get more interest from the people they met), they did not find that either gender tended to be more interested in those individuals than the other gender . (In other words, they did not find a greater correlation between the interest of the studied men in the women they had met and the attractiveness of those women than they found
between the interest of the studied women in the men they had met
and the attractiveness of those men.)
I wonder if somehow the whole "makpid on looks" might be a subconscious attraction to a bochur's/bochurah's mother/father. Though that would mean more than a physical 10.I don’t think we in the CR believe in that sort of Freudian psychology.
I don’t know if it’s true regarding looks, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying that in general, people tend to be attracted to people who resemble their parents.
My 2nd-to-last post seems to have gotten stuck in limbo…
(It’s up now.)
Can’t judge a book by it’s cover.
Someone awfully pretty can be pretty awfull at the same time.
What is the point ?
Why does a girl have to pretty in her husband eyes ?
Why does the torah agree with this statement ?
What? Isn’t that obvious?
The wife that is pretty to her husband may not necessarily be a standard beauty on the magazine covers.
However, the husband sees her beautiful neshamah, which colors his perception of his wife. Thus, to him, she is beautiful.
Hopefully to Hashem we are also beautiful, for Hashem sees our souls and the good in us. According to Torah, the Jewish people are like Hashem’s wife.
A wife also needs to be attracted to her husband, see his good, and the beauty of his neshamah. He also may not be attractive by modern or most people’s standards, but to her his is handsome.
Furthermore, a husband is not meant to look at other women after he wants his date to be his kallah, and ishto. Then she is the most beautiful for there is no other woman in his world, b’esrat Hashem.
“What is the point ?
Why does a girl have to pretty in her husband eyes ?
Why does the torah agree with this statement ?”
Marriage is an intimate relationship between two humans. The nature of humans is such that physical attraction plays a significant role in their relationships.
The Torah was written for humans. Thus, the Torah recognizes that physical attraction is important in a marriage.
Kitov – I apologize if my response was insensitive.
I heard the following story from a Rosh Yeshiva and I think it accurately sums up a position on this:
There was a bochur in yeshiva who was rigid on that he would only marry/date an extremely attractive girl. He went on and on about this and it was becoming a big issue for him. All the rabbeim in his yeshiva were criticizing him and blasting him for it. Eventually it got to the point where he decided he would go to a Gadol, ask him the question, and follow whatever he said, convinced that he was right. The Rav I heard this from overheard the bochur telling his story & question to the gadol (I don’t fully remember which Gadol this was, although I’m 90% sure it was Rav Kamenetsky, possibly his father) from the next room. Rav Kamenetsky responded that it is important to marry someone he’s attracted to, and expounded on this, building the guy up to think he’s right, and all his rabbeim were wrong on it, at which point Rav Kamenetsky slammed his hand on the table, and said in a rather loud voice “…but you’re sick!!! And you’re going to be miserable!!”
Let’s not forget king achasvarosh was makpid on looks.
thats one of reasons we say malech tippish hayah.
He was a dumb king.
“Let’s not forget king achasvarosh was makpid on looks.
thats one of reasons we say malech tippish hayah.”
Source?
MDG-“BUT POVERTY DISFIGURES THEM”
So the OP should be – Being Makpid on Money!
I only want to marry a girl that’s got a lot of dough!
Kitov -“Can’t judge a book by it’s cover.
Someone awfully pretty can be pretty awfull at the same time.”
It’s also true – s/o awfully ugly, can be pretty awful at the same time!
I remember this story from childhood! My Rebbetzin at Hebrew school was such a great storyteller:
Esther was nervous that she wouldn’t be fair enough in the eyes of King Achasvarosh. Her dress was plain while all the other women wore fine cloths. The other women wore elaborate makeup. All Esther had was the pinprick of blood to color her cheeks and lips.
But Hashem did a miracle. He made Esther the most gorgeous woman in the room. She glowed from her neshamah outward. King Aschasvarosh was taken by her beauty. He chose her out of everyone to be his queen.
That story always stuck with me. I learned that my neshamah is the true beautiful thing that matters and it will color the way others see me. And the way that we perceive others. Such a powerful thing to teach little girls and boys.
MDG-“BUT POVERTY DISFIGURES THEM”
Health: “So the OP should be – Being Makpid on Money!
I only want to marry a girl that’s got a lot of dough!”
That doesn’t mean that all poor girls are ugly. It just means that SOME of them may appear to be ugly but they really aren’t. But there can be some poor girls who don’t even appear to be ugly.
Its not tznius to look at a girl. People should not be makpid on looks because then it will make you have a harder time getting married.
LU -“That doesn’t mean that all poor girls are ugly.”
I never said or implied that!
The point I’m making is that posters are complaining that s/o shouldn’t be Makpid on looks, but they wouldn’t say boo if the guy was Makpid on money!
I just heard a story about a gorgeous, rich girl that everyone was obsessed with and she had everything going for her and everyone was so jealous of her. when it came time for shidduchim she got engaged right away to a gorgeous, handsome, good-looking guy and everyone was so jealous of that couple. as sad as it sounds, the couple only had one child and that child was a dwarf.
So looks are not everything!
(I’m a big talker cuz i’m totally not up to that point yet but i think it’s something important to keep in mind for future reference when i mature a litte!)
“Its not tznius to look at a girl”
It is forbidden for a man to marry a woman until he sees her (Kiddushin 41A)
“People should not be makpid on looks because then it will make you have a harder time getting married.”
People who consider looks to be important should be makpid on looks because otherwise you will have a harder time staying married.
Meno: “People who consider looks to be important should be makpid on looks because otherwise you will have a harder time staying married.”
And girls who think that boys shouldn’t be so makpid on looks shouldn’t marry those boys.
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