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Dy,
boys arent limited there are always new ones entering the pool, the numbers aren’t stagnant.
focusing on the numbers is a sham. The numbers have not changed.
What has changed is the rigidity involved in dating, the amount of research that goes into each date, and limting of venues for boys/girls to meet. The way our shiduch system is set up, the ball is complelty in the guy’s court and the girls are at their mercy. This allows boys to reject girls for inane reasons, read the Yated’s shiduch forum you will find plenty. (example a few weeks ago there was talk of someone rejecting a girl because her father wore blue shirts to work). However becuase it is so rigid and the girl cant really make a move before the boy does, thus out of 112 girls many arent getting dates, and obviously wont get married. Limiting the number of boys wont change that unless some other societal norms are changed.
Note they dont have to be “left-ward” changes getting rid of dating and just setting up pairing up boys and girls likre chasidim too wold get rid of the crises too. This is why they dont hve a crises. They have the same “age-gap” yet no crises, what they do different is their style of dating, whcih is what we do differently compared to our parents as well.
There is one new societal norm in shidduch dating. And it is, as ubiquitin suggests, a change that did not exist 15 / 20 years ago.
“Shadchan suggests girl. Boys’ side looks into her.” The shadchan always suggests the girl to the boy’s side first. Interesting to note that this is generally not the case in Chassidish circles, where the girls do not have the same problems in shidduchim. The “old fashioned” method, which Chassidish shadchanim still practice, was for the shadchan to redt the shidduch to both sides simultaneously. I have been told this was changed to protect the girls from rejection. (Why we assume that this is more painful for girls & their families than for boys & their parents, is beyond me.) This way the girl being redt a shidduch already has a positive answer from the boy, and it’s up to her to accept or reject the proposal.
If we would all seriously be interested in making a change that would result in more dates for girls, this would be it: Insist that all shadchanim stop this new, nonsensical practice of presenting boys with girls’ names first!
Many people bemoan the fact that boys and girls do not meet on their own as they did a generation ago. News flash- not all couples married today met on their own. Many of us met through the traditional “shadchan method.” And it worked. What changed in the last 20 years or so, is this ridiculous idea of protecting our young ladies from rejection, thus ensuring that not only are they not rejected, now they can’t get a date either!
The age gap solutions of having younger boys enter the shidduch market open a shelf load of cans of worms that I will not go into. Any married person, mechanech or mechaneches, or parent, can easily discern what they are. The beauty of this solution is that it creates no major changes, except for a bit of inconvenience on the part of girls and their parents, and perhaps few extra phone calls on the part of the shadchan. If they are genuinely interested in trying to alleviate the problem, they are the ones who must decide they”ll try it!
Golfer,
Yes exactly!
however the problem is two fold firstly “If we would all seriously be interested in making a change that would result in more dates for girls” Many people dont realize that there is s problem in girls getting dates they focus on the “age gap” and arent even interested in discussing it. See some early posters on this thread. I have spent a few posts trying to convince DY that there is a problem in getting dates (a prerequisite for marriage)but he is just not getting it and is harping on the “age gap”
Secondly i think you underestimate the magnitude of the change in equalizing the playing field for boys andgirls. For better or for worse our society has grown very wary of any change, especialy when you can always find a Gemara to make your case. In this situation you will have to overcome “derech shel ish lachzor al isha” as a source taken to mean that girls should be forced to wait patiently until they are chosen by a boy for a date.
If girls want more dates they should be more interested in attracting boys and less interested in eating ice cream and cheesecake.
Hi ubiq!
“Derech shel ish lachzor al isha”!? Just let them try that one on me! Unlike those who wish to change the system so boys and girls can meet on their own, I have mesora on my side. Going back further than New York in the 1940’s. Shadchanim have been around for a long long time, and they always suggested a shidduch to the families (often the fathers) of a young man & a young lady at the same time. This new system of approaching the boys first was definitely not around thirty years ago. As I mentioned, it grew out of a misguided attempt to protect our (already overprotected?) daughters from hurt feelings.
Hi OOM!
Happy Shavuos to you too!
I wish the mods had killed webw’s post at birth, but you certainly gave it a new perspective!
I don’t know why everyone here seems to think that older singles are a modern invention. According to my great-grandmother there were always quite a few woman that never married.
ubi and others:
I haven’t seen you take a stance on the following statement/observation:
Do you agree/disagree:
The number of orthodox non chassidic men who are still single after 5/10 years of dating is significantly fewer than the number of orthodox non chassidic women who are single after 5/10 years of dating.
Or perhaps I should restate it as follows:
The number of orthodox non chassidic men between the ages of 30-38 who are unmarried is significantly fewer than the number of orthodox non chassidic women between the ages of 27- 35 who are unmarried.
If the answer to this is yes, then we can begin to discuss how it is possible and how it happened and how to alleviate it. If the answer if no, then the discussion doesn’t begin.
so where do you stand on that question:
Yes
No
Unsure
As for addressing the issue of dating style/frequency of dates/inefficiencies of shadchanim system/ non chassidim vs. chassidim/ etc all those issues can and have been addressed effectively, but it begins with the statement above.
Maybe the age gap wouldnt be such an issue if people were more concerned about the compatibility gap.
I still cannot get over the idea that dating a 20 year old is considered an injustice if the family found out a 19 year old is “on the market”. Really?
golfer: ^_^
AZ, unsure but it is irrelevant.
If I had to guess I’d say there are more girls (though I and my family know of more boys so I cant be sure) simply because Men tend to marry women younger than they.
Though as explained at length this has little to nothing to do with the “crises” in its current form which stems from the fact that women aren’t getting dates in spite of the fact that there are plenty available.
Now your turn to answer a question or 2, why would chassidim not have this “crises” Is it because they marry the the same age or their numbers arent increasing?
Similarily why the sudden talk of “Crises” which of the above variables changed?
Hey OneOfMany! : )
Hey BTGuy – Welcome Back 🙂
Just to clarify one math thing, if there are 112 girls and 300 guys and each guy goes on three dates, that means that the average girl got 2.67 dates. That means that some girls had a shorter shidduch list.
AZ, the inefficiencies of the shadchan system have most certainly NOT been addressed effectively, or even half-heartedly, or sloppily. Your statement will be correct when shadchanim start redting shidduchim to boys and girls at the same time, as any old-time shadchan will tell you used to be the norm. Before we try game changing plans that are difficult and perhaps foolhardy to implement, why don’t we try this small simple change? No money or Kol Korehs necessary.
As for your charts and mathematical calculations- I’ve been zocheh to be married for a lot of years. (Exactly how long? Don’t try getting ladies to divulge sensitive info that may reveal their age.) My friends and I were born during the post-World War II baby boom, a time of great population growth among Jewish communities as well. Why didn’t we have this problem? Zero girls in my graduating class never married. And back in the day we all had plenty of dates and fine young men to choose from. If the math works now, it should have worked then too, correct?
ubiq:
you write:
“AZ, unsure but it is irrelevant.”
Irrelevant, wow that is interesting. sure seems relevant to me. I guess there is not much left to discuss. I will leave you to work on what you define as the crisis. As I pointed out earlier, in your perception, if there are 10 guys and 100 girls and each guy dates on average 10 girls before he gets engaged, then there is no problem because all girls are likely to get a equal number of dates. And if we create a really effective and efficient dating system,then we can arrange for these 100 dates and 10 engagements to happen very quickly so that instead of it being 5 years until 10 guys get married to 10 girls, and 90 girls get left out, we could accomplish that all in a matter of a few months. And you will sleep peacefully at night knowing that all the girls got one date in a efficient system.
Good luck in your efforts, i will continue to support the efforts to work on alleviating the crisis as per the definition i provided above. Because i won’t sleep well at night knowing that 90 girls are now without a match.
As for chassidim. in their community it is NOT true that the number of men between the ages of 30-38 who are unmarried far exceeds the number of women between the ages of 27-35 who are unmarried. Why that is so, we can discuss. The explanation is actually very simple, but until you develop a firm opinion to the statement i raised earlier, there isn’t much to discuss.
As far as I see it, the goal isn’t to get girls dates, nor is it to get girls married before the age of 23 (or whatever age you pick). Those would of course be nice things to accomplish, but that isn’t what the crisis is and thus that isn’t what needs to be accomplished.
Golfer: I would encourage you to research the efforts of the NASI Project over the past 6 years. I think you might find they have been mightily effective at promoting exactly what you suggest. If you have other ways to encourage close in age shidduchim of being redt by shadhcanim enmasse, i’m sure the OP would be happy to hear.
oh, one more question: how many the girls in your graduating class had 7 siblings. How many families in your community where you were growing up had 10 kids in the family.
G-d bless everyone opposing AZ. Its comforting to know that not everyone is farkoift. It never ceases to amaze me how some people know how to fix things before they can even explain the problem. It’s everywhere- America has a gun crime problem, and one group of people knows that we can fix it by prohibiting gun sales, while another group knows we can fix it by giving everyone concealed weapons to defend themselves. Its ridiculous. If I say hold the presses, I don’t think I am standing in the way of any improvements, just the opposite, in fact. If you can’t figure out the problem, you have no chance of improving things with your proposed solution.
AZ,
a few things first of all are you saying there are 10 times as many girls as guys? Ive heard wild numbers but that would take the cake are you really suggesting 10 boys for every 100 girls?
also in your world over 5 years are their are no additional people entering the datign pool? My what a strange world you live in.
On this thread I am strictly discussing reality. In imagination land, sure the “age gap” is the cause of the “shidduch crises” why not. Though Im not sure how much effort it is worth expending to solve a crises that exists in your imagination
I love how you couldnt answer my simple question regarding chasisim, not surprised but still amused.
Agreed the goal isnt to get dates. However as i stated at the onset one of the biggest segulas to marriage is dating. If girls arent getting dates they wont get married. Of course getting more dates doesnt automaticly mean they will get married (at that point we can discuss “age gap” but without dates they certainly wont get married. Period.
ubi:
I haven’t answered any questions:
I simply asked for your take on a observation and commented that that observation doesn’t exist by chassidim.
I have not stated in this thread that age gap is the cause of the crisis-I have simply pointed out a observation- for now i am simply discussing that observation. Something you seem awfully reluctant to do.
no, I am NOT suggesting that the numbers of 10x’s as many girls to guys, i simply used that as a illustration of how inaccurate your position is.
but in talking about reality i noted a observation that is as real as the sun rises, and you stated that you are unsure regarding that reality. We need to first agree on that observation and then discuss how that observation came to be and what could be done to change it.
now to answer you question re: chassidim. being that the boys begin dating at around the same age of the girl, thus they have equal numbers of boys/girl entering the dating scene each year.(In fact, they actually have slightly more boys than girls entereing shidduchim each year because there are actaully sligly more males than females at the exact same age, and this is why the chassidm have a slight reverse shidduch crisis- but this might confuse you.)
how’s that for an answer? Are you still amused?
But i don’t want to even discuss causes and answers and irrelevant questions, until we can agree on the reality.
something you are reluctant to do.
I guess you feel that reality isn’t relevant. In that case i’m not sure there is much to talk about.
What you call irrelevant, I refer to as THE definition of the crisis.
I’ll be happy to address all your specific questions, only once you and your fellow posters take a firm stance regarding the observation i pointed out.
AZ,
I am still amused since in an effort to promote this “age gap” nonsense you are now making stuff up. Chasidim are generally older than their wives. Granted not as much as among their Litvish counterparts but older nonetheless. According to the “age gap” theory why wouldnt they have a shiduch crises albeit less than in the yeshiva world?
Nice try but no cigar.
hint: Compare the way they date vis a vis the way the yeshiva world dates. There you will find a significant difference.
Also note that you have yet to address why this “crises” is new. Although if you will resort to making stuff up, Id rather you didnt and just say you dont know.
I told you I dont know the reality though i am willing to accept that there are more older single girls than guys. This is logical and inevitible and likely not to change since guys have an easier time marrying people younger than they. Age gap or no age gap. thus for example a 30 year old guy is likely to marry any girl in ages 23 – 30 (very rough estimate obviously) while a 30 year old girl has little chance at marrying anybody younger than say 28. (Although obviously anything is possible, here i am discussing liklihood. Thus as they age it gets harder for Girls to marry than for guys thus obviously there will be more single girls.
You can call it the definition of the crises, it is still wrong as Ive explained.
while asking if i agree, I’m curious if you agree with the assertion that there are many girls (at all ages) who are having trouble getting dates (I have taken a stance on your observation twice as of this post)
Ubiquitin, chassidim have a much smaller age gap than non chassidim.
Maybe I missed it. Did you answer my question? If there are more girls than boys, how could giving all of the girls an equal number of dates possibly get them all married, if there are simply not enough boys??
We can do extra Kiruv on non affiliated guys on college campus advertise free beef stew on a Thursday night while watching a football game and teach them about shomer Shabbos athletes who sacrificed their careers in order to keep shabbos whole telling them about different foods traditionally eaten on shabbos.
We should also reach out to college campuses without hillels and open up. Jewish cultural centers for college students where they will have regular access to shabbos hospitality and shiurim by young couples but occasionally bring in other guest speakers for shabbatonim and have kosher food for students to eat.
Ches, you asked me to clarify what I meant about where to find more boys without compromising on Halacha. My suggestion was to be more flexible about which guys our girls are willing to date by doing the following. Admittedly I haven’t put much thought into it but these were my suggestions: “Although learning full time is ideal, maybe the schools need to stop pushing it on the girls who can’t handle it.
There are many who say that there is a reverse crisis by the chassidim of there being too many guys. I don’t know if its true but being that its mentioned time and again, maybe there’s where our problem is. Perhaps we need to revamp our chinuch in order that we all become more accepting of other Jews.
I’m sure we will find wonderful boys deserving of our girls if we become less exclusive.”
DY,
giving all girls dates might not help them ALL get married, and we will cross that bridge when we get there. (My guess is enough guys marry girls their age or older to alleviate the “gap”)
So you agree chasidim have a “age gap” albeit smaller but no crises. According to your numbers at 4% increase pr year even if 19 year olds are marrying 18 year olds, that should leave 4% of chassidish girls unmarried.
What you are missing is you are skipping to the end of the process whent he backlog is earlier.
Shidduchim is a process. A girl/guy wont get married until they o through the ENTIRE thing. You can not skip a step. I outlined the steps before I will do so again:
a. Shadchan suggests girls to the boys side.
b. Boy looks into girl(s) and agrees to go out with one
c. Girl who has been chosen looks into guy and agrees to go out with him
d. They go out for a few weeks
e. They get engaged
f. They get married
Do you have any quibles with the above outline?
assuming you dont. In your opinion/experience at which stage is the biggest problem. Obviously this is the first step to determine the cause of the “crises” (Sure their are those who get stuck at each step along the way for example engagements that dont make it to marriage e -> f, but i dont think anybody would say that is where all these single girls get stuck).
The article you quoted, and I agree, that the BIGGEST (not only) backlog is a -> b.
What do you think?
AZ feel free to answer too
ubi:
1. At a almost minuscule age differential their will be a shortage of boys. That is what is happening by the chassidim because they start dating at around the same age.By all means do some research. I explained why at a tiny age differential there will be a reverse crisis in my previous post. I guess you missed it.
2. Comparing the way they date will have absolutely zero effect on how many are left over as DY pointed out to you again and again. His point is the exact point I’ve been making regarding the observation. Without discussing why and how that observation came to be. Only after grasping the significance of the observation can we then analyze how to alleviate it, and of course part of analyzing how to alleviate it will include (but won’t be limited to) understanding how it came about
3. Your analysis of the situation is simply incorrect and it has been explained ad naseum in this forum why it is incorrect. Once you agree that there are far more guys in the dating pool than girls (without getting into why that is so and how it came about and if this is a relatively new phenomena or not) then it is obvious that girls at all ages will have difficulty getting dates. However i won’t begin to discuss that point which is simply a result of the observation until you fully grasp the significant of the observation.
I may be incorrect, but it appears to me from your posts that yo don’t grasp the significance of the observation.
Here’s a question for you to ponder:
girls age 19/20/21 should be easily able to date guys age 22/23/24. You would surely agree that the guys age 22/23/24 are not dating girls who are 30 years old. So if I may ask, how is it, that the number of guys who start dating at 22 and are still single post 24 is far fewer than the girls who started dating at 19 and are still single at post 21. I mean the girls 19/20/21 could date guys not just 22-24 but they could in theory date guys even 25/26/27 ????
Here’s another question for you to ponder: you correctly state that in theory 30 year old guys can marry 23 year old girls (for example) but certainly the 30 year olds should have very very stiff competition from all the 24/25/26 year old guys who are vying for those same 23 year old girls??????
It is true that once a girl is (pick a age lets say 30) the pool of available guys is diminished, but why should she ever reach that age single, after all when she was 23 she had all the guys age 23-30 whom she could date?????
ubi: you are focusing on the dating process which is of course a pre-requisite to getting married, but without pondering the wide reaching implications of the observation i noted in my first post- it is basically a effort in futility as DY has pointed out a few times.
Finally- in answer to your question. YES, of course girls of all ages are having difficulty getting dates. Just like in my example of 100 girls and 10 guys, and each guy dates on average 10 girls before he gets married. The guys will be getting 10x’s as many dates as the girls. We could make it a very efficient process or we could have a inefficient process, but the relative ratio and frequency of dates for the girls won’t change. A more efficient process will simply be the equal of a game of muscial chairs and having the music play faster. As DY point out to you, adjusting the dating process to make it more efficient will in no way change the observation.
(Actually it will have a minor effect on the observation because a more efficient process will mean guys would get married a bit younger which in turn will have a effect on the observation but i don’t think that is what you were looking to hear.)
If each guy were to date on average 6 girl before he get married, then on average each girl would get 6 dates. of course it is possible and highly likely that the dates wouldn’t be divided equally among the girls. Some girls might get a chance to date all 10 guys, some girls might only date 2 guys. We could invest ourselves in trying to adjust the system to divide the dates equally among all the girls, but as i’m sure you realize, the net effect wold not result in any more than 10 of the girls getting married.
Please indicate it are there any other questions that i have refrained from answering.
AZ:
“without getting into why that is so and how it came about and if this is a relatively new phenomena or not”
This is absurd of course the hows and whys matter! You cant just ignore every hole in your “theory” and say nothing matters.
you then state “then it is obvious that girls at all ages will have difficulty getting dates” This is more nonsense since most guys date more than one girl and some a lot more. This has been expalined ad nauseuem. Thus age gap or no age gap There should be more than enough dates for all girls.
You ask
“girls age 19/20/21 should be easily able to date guys age 22/23/24. You would surely agree that the guys age 22/23/24 are not dating girls who are 30 years old. So if I may ask, how is it, that the number of guys who start dating at 22 and are still single post 24 is far fewer than the girls who started dating at 19 and are still single at post 21. I mean the girls 19/20/21 could date guys not just 22-24 but they could in theory date guys even 25/26/27 ????”
im so glad you asked! It is becuas the way our sytem is set up the guy picks who to go out with, while the girl sits there waiting/davening that she will be picked. Thus some girls are receieving “more than their share” of dates while others suffer from “relativley infrequent dating” as The article DY posted earlier put it.
As to your next question the older guys do have competition! Though since girls sit waiting hoping to get a call, if they are chosen by 30 year old they may agree to go otu since nobody else called. Obviously if at the smae time a girl got a yes froma 24 year old, other things being equal she will generally pick the younger one.
As to your next question, because for whatever reason, she had access to less dates, when younger. (Obviously this isnt always true but it generally holds true).
Yes there is a question you havent answered, you havent addressed why this is new, what changed? Was it the age discrepancy? or the yearly increase in population? Or something else
AZ further you say
“If each guy were to date on average 6 girl before he get married, then on average each girl would get 6 dates. of course it is possible and highly likely that the dates wouldn’t be divided equally among the girls. Some girls might get a chance to date all 10 guys, some girls might only date 2 guys”
Why not? assuming the girls are equal? sure there will be minor variation girl to girl but if “many suffer from infrequent dating” in spite of the fact that there are DATES available. It shoud be obvious that there is a bias in your sample.
You gave absurd examples involving ten times as many girls as guys. Allow me to illustrate with numbers too example (exaggerated sure, though not as exaggerated as yours)
suppose you have 10,000 guys dating 10,100 girls each guy goes out lets say 5 times. Of the girls 10,000 go out five times each and get married while the other 100 get 0 dates. Would you also stick your ears in your head and shout oh becuase their arent enough guys, or would you at least glance at the 100 girls to determine why they havent gotten a date out of the 50,000 dates available?
Ubi:
I didn’t say i won’t discuss it, i simply said i wasn’t ready to discuss it yet.
It seems to me like we are going in circles. You insisting with focusing on the issue of girls having difficulty getting dates, and me focusing on the observation that there are far more unmarried girls around than unmarried guys.
Until you are ready to focus solely on that issue of that observation, i am not ready to discuss why that is so, how it came about and why it is a relatively new situation.
Your are welcome to focus you efforts on making a more efficient game of musical chairs, but you have not addressed DY’s correct point, that so long as there aren’t enough guy to go around, what will it help to spread out the dates more evenly….
(at one point you suggested that DY is not correct becasuse the numbers of guys aren’t stagnant, but i assume you realized the fallacy of that statement, because obviously the number of girls aren’t stagnant either.)
so for starters: i’ll wait for your response to
a. the observation (other than a simply yeah- so what difference does it make). Because it should be obvious that it makes all the difference in the world.
b. your response to DY’s point, how would a more efficient system help if there aren’t enough guys to go around.
unless you only goal is to simply keep the music going and spread the dates more evenly. In which case it would be helpful if you could explain what the benefit to that would be unless that is your total goal.
If that is the case we have nothing to further discuss as we are dealing with (what in your mind) are totally unrelated issues and i wish the best of success in your attempts to spread the dates more evenly.
(as for your example of 10,000 and 10,100 i might be intrigued by why those 100 girls didn’t date at all, but i would realize that adjusting the system to get them some dates or equal number of dates wouldn’t result in a change of the end result of 100 still being single.
You see my goal is NOT to get all girls equal number of dates, my goal is to get all girls married.
you will respond that dating is the best segula to getting married, and i will of course agree, BUT 100 guys dating 110 girls is the best segula to ensure that 10 of those girls won’t get married.
And spreading the dates out evenly among the 110 girls will do nothing to change that net result of 10 girls not being married.
Is there some hole in that “theory”???
ubi:
As for your responses to my questions i asked you to ponder, they are not accurate responses as should be self evident, against my better judgement (because they are not nearly as important as the issue i raised in the preceding post.) i’ll provide a resishis preakim….
shouldn’t the number of unpicked girls cause there to be a equal number of guys who thus can’ be married. I mean at the end of the day the “picked” can marry one guy and only one guy. so why are there so many more girls “unpicked” and thus single at age 21 plus -having tried to date 3 years, and yet the number of guys who are single after dating 3 years is far fewer than the corresponding number of “unpicked” girls.
and before you suggest, that’t because the guys keep on going younger, to the new girls, please think it thru…. remember every year there are new guys who would also be looking for those same new girls as well as all the girls 19-21 who are “picked” girls… since all the guys don’t want to date the “unpicked” girls….
Ubi:
I just found this post of yours from earlier.
1. giving all girls dates might not help them ALL get married, and we will cross that bridge when we get there.
sure seems like it a important bridge to cross. Especially since a casual observation would show that enough girls are getting dates to suffice for the guys to get married…..
2. My guess is enough guys marry girls their age or older to alleviate the “gap”
bad guess. if that was so, then the observation above would be false, like it is by the chassisim. How i wish your guess was correct.
3. So you agree chasidim have a “age gap” albeit smaller but no crises. According to your numbers at 4% increase pr year even if 19 year olds are marrying 18 year olds, that should leave 4% of chassidish girls unmarried.
false, because there are actually more males born every year than females. (which is also why in order to alleviate the crisis we don’t need to close the gap entirely.
Please note: i do not intent to make the statement that the gap caused the observation. i’ll be happy to discuss other possibilities once we agree to the observation. i’m simply addressing what you wrote above.
As for your statement above:
“That the BIGGEST (not only) backlog is a -> b.”
Perhaps, just maybe, possibly, it might part of the reason, why that backlog exists is because of the observation i pointed out above.
I mean it’s not conclusively proven, but maybe just maybe if the number of unmarried guys and girls were relatively equal and the guys didn’t have the upper hand, and thus the guys wouldn’t be able to be so selective, and the shadchanim wouldn’t be so beholden to the guys, etc etc… maybe just maybe that might alleviate and smooth step a->b.
I mean it’s just a guess – some food for thought.
I mean if you have 100 girls and 10 guys and the guys have many many options it’s likely and natural that there will be a backlog from a->b
but as I’ve stated numerous times above, this isn’t a dialogue i’ll have in this forum at this time, it’s just some food for thought.
So you agree chasidim have a “age gap” albeit smaller but no crises. According to your numbers at 4% increase pr year even if 19 year olds are marrying 18 year olds, that should leave 4% of chassidish girls unmarried.
No, because statistics show that there are actually more boys born than girls.
In your opinion/experience at which stage is the biggest problem.
None of the above. You said not to skip a step, but that’s what you’ve done. The first step is actually for young men and women to enter into shidduchim, and since they do so in uneven numbers, the rest of the process is skewed.
If you arent willing to have discussions about the fallacies of your argument, how can we get anywhere.
My bringing up historical precedent is to demonstrate that your “theroy” is flawed. How can you be unwilling to discuss a giant gaping hole in your theory.
Getting dates will move things along as it has in the past, that is my point. Nothing has changed in demographics (obviously we nay have grown but that would be equal to boys and girls)I can only assume you agree with his since after repeated questioning you wont discuss it I assume because you realize what a gaping hole it blows in your theory). what has changed is our method of dating. Thus by examining our method, and where the backlog is (which you agree to) And then (and this is key!) examining what has CHANGED historically. We can discuss how to correct the problem and undo the change.
The musical chairs isnt a simple game of musical chairs. This is a more complex game with a many variables, chairs being added and removed for a variety of reasons, more importantly the game never stops with one chair left more chairs and peope are constanly added! It keeps going and going. Boiling it down to 100 girls vying over 110 chairs is too simpistic and not accurate. And even in that situation if the same 10 girls are left standing every time the music stops. You would be right to check their hearing or something, and not simply saying well we are 10 seats short so obviously SOME people will be left standing. Sure but why is it so slanted and more importnalty how can we make the game more fair.
Also chasidim dont marry girls their age there is almost always at least 1 -2 year discrepancy.
Boiling it down to 100 girls vying over 110 chairs is too simpistic and not accurate.
Why? You still haven’t explained how more evenly distributed dating can magically produce more boys.
Though age differences of up to about three years within a marriage have always been common, today we are seeing men marrying women 5, 6, or 7 years their junior with increasing frequency.
To answer what you feel is a gaping hole in AZ’s theory; perhaps you missed tho sentence from Dr. Halpert’s article.
ubi:
1. If i explain why this is a relatively new phenomana will you quit your nonesense? Do you really think, i’ve never thought about if this is a new phenomana? Do you really think you are the first person to ask the question and “blow a gaping hole” in the theory. A theory that in this thread i haven’t even expalined or presented. I have simply noted a observation.
2. your comment about the chairs shows you are begiing to understand the observation but still missing the point. Could you please explain why boiling it down to 100 chairs and 110 players is to simplistic?? Would giving all 110 players equal opportunity result in any more than 100 players getting a chair?
will it?
3. your statement about chassidim is not accurate. Have you done widespread studies. Here’s something to ponder. being that chassidim begin shidduchim at the same age, it would be awfully funny if somehow the boys end up being two years older than the girls. I meant what that basically suggests, is that by chassidim it takes the boys two years longer on average to get married than it does the girls. Anyway, it’s simply not true.
But if you promise to stop your nonesense once i explain why this is a relatively new phenomona, i’ll be happy to do so.
If you don’t then i won’t.
I want to make sure we stay on course regarding the observation above, that you have neither denies, nor expalained how it’s not so central to the entire issue.
DY:
In your opinion/experience at which stage is the biggest problem.
None of the above. You said not to skip a step, but that’s what you’ve done.
The first step is actually for young men and women to enter into shidduchim,
and since they do so in uneven numbers, the rest of the process is skewed.
Brilliant!!
DY,
Im saying that the shortage of boys isnt THE problem, the problem is that as the system is set up (currently not in the past). The girls are complelty at the guys mercy and many arent getting (enough) dates in spite of there not being a shortage of dates. getting more boys to not date the group of girls who arent getting dates when there are 300 dates available for every 110 girls, will in no way help the “crises”
The key is to get more girls more dates, not to get more guys to vie for the girls who already have plenty dates
DY: ubiquitin’s point about musical chairs actually makes a lot of sense- the fact is that the shidduch “crisis” (I hate that word) is oversimplified. Even if the age gap is a contributing factor, it’s not the only contributing factor, and I think that ubiquitin made a great point about the musical chairs- to paraphrase, if you missed it, it’s one thing if there are always ten girls left out- it’s another thing if it’s always the same ten. To clarify the analogy, if each round of musical chairs is a “round” of dating, then if the same ten girls never get dates, we should figure out why that is.
The real problem, I think, comes when people try to take apart the “crisis” into very large elements- but there are practically NO “crises” where you can point at one culprit. Even in, say, WWI, everyone knows the assassination of Franz Ferdinand caused it, but really that was the culmination, or even result, of a whole slew of real causes. There are so many interlinked causes of this “crisis” that singling out one won’t really do anything.
AZ
1. Depends how accurate it is your response about chassidim was not accurate but at least you tried. I’m curious why you wont even try to address why it is a new phenomena.
2. It is simplistic beacuase its not just 110 girls vying for 100 chairs there are many other variables. Chairs and players are constatnly being added. The “game” contiues indefinity. To take a snapshot in time and pretend ALL 100 23 year old boys are ALL vying for 110 20 year old girls. and once the music stops the 10 remaining will never get a chance to play again, is not an accurate model for the shidduch system. Some boys start the game earlier some later, some drop out in middle for whatever reason some go for chairs that have been hanging out a while some prefer new chairs that have just been added etc etc and most importantly the game can keep going and going with new players and chairs constantly being added
If the same group of girls are consistently left standing after every round it is time to check their hearing.
3. They dont chasidim are a year or two older than their spouses. you made up that they enter the dating pool at the same time.
Anyway even taking the disastrous position of having boys dating younger, thus equalizig the playing field what is the plan to help the 3,000 older singles?
AZ
It just occurred to me not only is the musical chairs analogy simplistic, it is backwards! In musical chairs the players (girls in the analogy) fight over the fewer chairs (boys) each girl has an equal chance! It would be an absurd game if the chairs chose players to sit on them, then the players don’t even have a fair chance the chairs are free to pick based on any arbitrary quality they wish!?!
Give the girls a chance let them play that is All I am saying,
That and be willing to reconsider if something else is going on if the same girls are consistantly left standing
Writersoul, to tap into the musical chairs analogy*, if the ten girls who were left out were the ten with the worst hearing, giving them hearing aids would indeed even the playing field. But ten girls would be left out regardless, just likely not the same ten. So even if evening the playing field were possible (which is doubtful), it would not solve the problem, it would just shift it to other girls.
* I agree with ubiquitin that it’s simpler than the constantly changing shidduch field, but the essential numbers issue is still there.
DY,
granted.
Though getting more chairs wouldn’t help either unless the hearing was addressed as well.
That is essentially my point. The lack of chairs isnt enough to explain why the same group is never getting a seat after multiple rounds, there is something else going on like hearing. (Both becuase the number of chairs hasnt changed recently Though th way the game is played has) Thus getting more chairs wont help them at all, while hearing aids would help THEM ie give them an equal shot. Though overall some players would still be left out.
Focusing on the numeber of chairs when some cant even hear the music stopping is a fruitless exercise.
That is my point
Let’s say we added more chairs. Do you think the girls wouldn’t eventually notice and take a seat? (Of course the dynamics of shidduchim are different, but I’m illustrating a point).
What you are essentially agreeing to, if I understand you correctly, is that there can be no solution to the problem if the numbers aren’t addressed, but you maintain that fixing the numbers won’t help unless people’s priorities are changed
Here’s where I disagree. First of all, the vast majority of boys do marry within a relatively short time of starting to pursue shidduchim (maybe AZ has numbers), suggesting that pickiness is not the main issue. Secondly, I don’t think that the girls who don’t date often are completely undesirable to boys; it’s all relative. If there weren’t a “surplus” of girls, boys couldn’t afford to be as choosy.
You granted my assertion that hearing aids would just shift the lack of success in musical chairs to other players. There would still be 10% who couldn’t find seats, though. Think about it: if, as you assert, the numbers were always the same, that means that there must have always been a shidduch crisis of at least 10%.
” So even if evening the playing field were possible (which is doubtful), it would not solve the problem, it would just shift it to other girls.”
But if we could keep shifting it to younger and then to even younger girls instead of accepting that the older girls are continually left out (thereby getting older and having fewer options), we will have bought enough time to figure out a system where no one is left stranded (as the younger ones are still young enough for them not to have a problem).
DY,
no I Think the numbers would resolve themselves as they have in the past. There are many variables that are being simplified for the musical chair model (as you agreed too) In real life chairs and players are constantly being added and the game never really ends. Thus all we have to do is make sure the game stays fair and everybody has a (relatively) equal chance, and over time almost everybody will get married as they have in the past.
What am saying is even if the m=numbers is an issue (like in the limited musical chairs model) just adding chairs STILL wont solve the cirses as long as the games’s lopsidedness isnt addressed.
B”H for some clarity.
It seems like there is agreement re: the observation above. The issue at hand (in this thread) is whether evening out the numbers is the way to go or adjusting the system to level the field amongst the girls.
The explanation why evening the numbers is the route taken is as DY explained
“The vast majority of boys do marry within a relatively short time of starting to pursue shidduchim, suggesting that pickiness (on the part of the boys) is not the main issue. Secondly, I don’t think that the girls who don’t date often are completely undesirable to boys; it’s all relative. If there weren’t a “surplus” of girls, boys couldn’t afford to be as choosy.”
ubi/wrtier/interjection are suggesting that even with the numbers being equal the boys will simply wait and wait and wait. That doesn’t seem to be the reality.
All this being said, anyone who would like work on making a more efficient system, by all means, you should have the most hatzlacha. Why someone would consider that to be a contradiction to working on evening out the numbers is sometning i don’t fathom.
(The truth is that making a more efficient system would very possibly have a positive effect on the numbers. If the system was more efficient,then boys would get married quicker. If currently the average boy dates x number of girls before he gets engaged, and it takes y months for that process to run it’s course. Then in a more efficient system, one could posit that the process would take less time and thus essentially lowering their age by a small amount, which in turn will mean closing the age gap. But i don’t think this is was the posters had in mind.)
But if we could keep shifting it to younger and then to even younger girls instead of accepting that the older girls are continually left out
If I understand you correctly, you’ve hit upon an important point. “Shifting to younger and younger”, if you mean that the younger girls remain (temporarily) single, means, in effect, focusing attention on the older girls, and trying to get them married first. If I am not mistaken, this is precisely what NASI tries to do (and gets it over the head for it).
There’s another solution proposed by those who “get it”, that age gap is the cause of the lopsidedness (gender disparity). Some are trying to have boys get married younger ( I think NASI has encouraged this as well). This is indeed more of a long term solution, but will not help those girls who have already passed a certain age.
Ubiquitin, no and no.
The numbers haven’t resolved themselves in the past, unless by a miracle. You still haven’t explained (and I don’t blame you, it’s impossible) how all girls can get married when there are more of them than boys (in shidduchim). Perforce, either your assumption that the numbers were always lopsided is incorrect, or your assumption that there were never a lot of older single girls is incorrect.
The analogy of musical chairs is indeed flawed, but conceptually it’s correct. The differences are: in musical chairs, when the music stops, all chairs are taken. In shidduchim, the music never really stops, and all chairs are not taken. This means that for the individual, there’s always hope. But on a broader level, you still can’t fit 112 bodies into 110 chairs.
Another difference is that although more chairs and players are constantly being added, there are more players being added than chairs, so the disparity becomes exacerbated, not improved (in numbers, not necessarily in percentages).
You also keep mixing cause and effect. If the numbers were even, boys would likely be less choosy. The reason they keep their “silly criteria” is because they can. The anecdotal evidence for this is compelling; we see time and again that boys who have “something against them” (overweight, dysfunctional family, BT, previous engagement or divorce, previous frumkeit struggles, etc.) are willing to, and do, “settle” for girls with similar “silly criteria”. Why? Simple – supply and demand. The same laws of supply and demand would reduce the requirements to consider (go out with) a girl, and would even out the dating.
AZ
The reason I’m having this conversation is that I dont think the numbers are THE issue. I think it is a cute chap that some well-meaning people have latched on to as the panacea to all shidduch related issues. This deprives us from having real converstions about deper falws in our dating process that I and others believe are the real source of the disparity.
As Ive expalined multiple times the reason the Age-gap can not possibly be THE cause of the crises is primarily two fold:
1) It does not at all explain the dating discrepecny that exists. There are enough dates for every girl yet many arent getting dates. Please understand this point dating is NOT done 1:1.
2) The age gap has always existed, yet the crises is new. Old demographic issues can not explain new crises.
Because of these two reasons (DY has attempted to explain why 1 was incorrect though unsuccessfully, nobody has attempted to explain why 2 is incorrect)Many dont view the age gap as a plausible.
Because of this I think it is important to oppose efforts to label the shiduch crises as the “age gap” because it detracts from what I and others beleive is the real issue. And thta is to get more girls more dates by coming up with ways to level the playing field. Adding more boys to date the girls who already have dates will hardly help at all,
The key is to get the girls who have trouble getting dates more dates.
(Plus i think convincing immature boys to date is a terrible terrible idea, though I do concede that, there is room to disagree on that issue, so I have not brought it up until now, though it is another underlying reason why I oppose the “solution” focusing on the “age gap” issue though again I do believe reasonable people can disagree on this point).
Why do you oppose giving girls equal footing in the shidduch process. I.e. convince shadchanim to supply girls with lists of potential dates have them research etc and approach boys with a girls who already said yes, thus giving that girl a leg up compared to the other grils the boy has on his list?
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