Other solutions to the shidduch crisis

I recently heard of a conversation that supposedly took place between the Satmar Rebbe Z’l (the divrei yoel) and Rav Ahron Kotler Z’l. The Rebbe asked, chazal say shmone esrei lichupa, why do your bachurim delay getting married? Rav Ahron is reported to have responded, they are just davening a long shmone esrei, to which the Rebbe replied, when davening a long shemone esrei one misses out on kedusha. Obviously 2 different hashkafos.

PBA: Thanks, though considering the post with which you started this thread, I’m not sure whether your agreeing with me is faint praise… 😛 (the current age gap theory is a proportional one, so that fewer people involved in it will only mean that there will be fewer people overall, not that a “gap,” should you believe in such things, will shrink)

Joe, DY- I was totally expecting someone to call me out over cynicism for the “locked in” thing. I think I’m slightly in shock now. I think it’s completely wrong to lock someone in to a worldview by marriage and children, particularly if it’s likely that the worldview will change.

And Joe, why not make a mandatory shana bet then? Or do the Israeli style and institute extra grades in high school?

apy: And it works the same way the other way round- girls won’t want guys who have ever stepped out of the beis midrash, but they want their husbands to work soon after they’re married. Had they begun college/training before marriage, they could start even more quickly to become financially self sufficient.

There is very little logic in this system.

Sparkly: Would it shock you if I told you that I know MO people who don’t pick their own spouses from among male friends?

WS, I’m not sure what you meant by locked in, but I think I understood it differently than what I assumed Joseph meant.

I thought you meant stuck in a marriage and society which she feels she doesn’t belong (bad), and that Joseph meant that she will retain her idealism and type of frumkeit, and be happy in her marriage (good).

I think both are possible, and there’s an upside and a downside to getting married soon after sem.

Sparkly – Bederech Klal, learning boys don’t want to marry medical students. They are away too often and the money doesn’t come in quick enough. From what I’ve seen they many times end up marrying other medical students that they hang out with.

writer soul – not at all surprising. i know many people who met their spouses through shadchanim that are mo. thats also because they didnt like their male friends enough to want to marry them.

gavra at work – doctors make plenty of money. also when a girl goes off to med school she usually wants a guy the same type as her not someone learning full time whether shes mo or yeshivish.

Sparkly- I meant my friends who were set up (not through the shidduch system, which if you ask me is irredeemable at this point) and did not have male friends. But yeah, it was weird that I posted that, sorry.

gavra at work – or if your me you go to wear all the college guys go and go find someone there. (as a college girl)

writersoul – but you were correct in saying that not all mo people find their own guy some are set up by shidduchim and believe it or not even goyim lahavdil they have dating sites.

popa bar abba – most of the guys i hang out with are 3 – 5 years older than me. are you gping to say that will help cause a shidduch crisis when i h’h marry one of them?

Joe still hasn’t explained why marriage will suddenly preserve the idealism, while staying unmarried will allow it to degenerate.

There’s someone to whom you promised to live a certain way, and you wouldn’t want to disappoint them (among other reasons).

just boys assume that they have to be in long-term learning in order to get a shidduch

So you agree that it doesn’t exist, just that you think it should. So do I, but that wasn’t the point.

you’d have to use embryo selection if you really wanted to regulate effectively (two children per family, exactly at replacement level, to prevent population growth)

If this were serious, I would respond that:

1) No matter how much social engineering we do, there will always be some who don’t get married.

2) There are more boys born than girls, so we could grow a bit, maintain an age gap, and still have even numbers.

But it isn’t, so I won’t.

DY: And how is that not being locked in in the cynical way I mentioned it? I’m in a position right now where I know a couple of people in marriages that lasted too long and finally imploded, with fallout for the kids, once each side realized that they were in incompatibly different places hashkafically and the status quo was untenable.

My point is that it does exist, just they’re hiding out. If someone were to allow them out, they’d be around in droves.

Put it this way- a few months ago there was a letter to a shidduch columnist in a well-known magazine in which a woman had started dating at 19 while in college, resolute that she was going to end up a kollel wife supporting her super shtark husband forever. Five years later, she still figured she wanted that, but she kept on encountering on her dates guys who fit the bill in shtarkness but who, due to only ever having been in yeshiva, lacked the sophistication and outside knowledge and self sufficiency that she had picked up over her education and work and which she began to realize she appreciated in a spouse. The columnist told her to put her priorities straight and make sure she was only getting redt to the shtarkest guys from the best yeshivos in order to get that out of her head. But it’s a clear example of how she had changed in some ways and pushing her into the cookie-cutter mold wasn’t going to help. Worse, there’s probably some guy in yeshiva who is a great guy who reads the Wall Street Journal between sedarim, or even has started college, but because she’s being encouraged to date “top guys,” they’ll never meet.

And to totally ignore your non-response, even if you limited it to three, allowing for some population growth and some people never getting married, you’d still have to use embryo selection, as there are families that have a bunch of kids of one gender in a row.

writer soul – exactly. back when i was yeshivish i wanted a kollel guy now i need a learner worker. that girl should be open to date people who are her type. why date someone who doesnt go to the movies or listen to not jewish music if you do? (if you go from yeshivish not doing that stuff to mo where you do that stuff.)

abba-s – thats okay i know many really good guys that h’h ill end up with one of them and their all good frum boys and the rest i can set up with my friends.

abba -s – this is true and nothing can stop that person from marrying that person.