The Age Gap and the Musical Chairs of Shidduchim👴👶🏻🎶💺💺

“How can anyone logically disagree?”

I dont understand how anyone can logically accept the age gap theory
first of all the musical chairs analogy falls flat after thinking about it for more than 2 seconds, because in shiduchim the music doesnt stop. chairs and players are regularly added for all eternity.

Secondly as explained many years ago:

“The shidduch process in our community works something like this: shadchan suggests girl, boy’s side looks into her, Boys side agrees, girls side looks in and agrees, they date, get engaged and married. Asking around the problem in the chain is that girls arent getting enough dates.
Assuming 100 guys for 112 girls. The guys often date several girls before finding the one. assuming each guy dates 3 gitls before settling down that is 300 dates for the 112 girls.that Should more than cover all girls. The issue shouldnt be girls struggling with “short lists and relatively infrequent dating” All girls should get an equal number of dates though a few dont get married.

The calculations upon which the Age gap tm is based is a “situation in which elements of two distinct sets (think of single men and single women) may be paired in a one-to-one manner (think of marriage)” This holds true for marriage but not dating. By far most Guys date more than one girl And some a lot more.

Therfore the age gap can not be used to explain why girls aren’t getting dates.

In short, the boys are going out with a subset of the available girls. Not because there aren’t enough boys.

To go back to the popular musical chairs example. IF upon observing the game you notice that after every round the same players are left standing (some even when there are chairs available) even if at the very design of the game no matter what you do soem players wil lreamin standing. There is something up with these players and not the game

As someone posted in another thread, we have to get out of the mindset that a girl 22 or 23 is an “old maid”. Referring to them as an “older single” is wrong.

Shadchanim and parents.

If the musical chair theory is really true, we should ask a few girls to volunteer and stay single.

“is widely accepted as indeed being the case in the Litvish”

I did not know that.
nobody IVe spoken to including Shadchanim those dating and Rabbanonim (who have signed relevant kol korehs) think it is a major cause let alone THE cause.
(I dont know about MO)

Where does the premise that there are so many girls than boys come from?

You make it seem like a machine churns out a fixed number of boys and girls per year, and the boys date younger girls – so some girls dont have a match – that isn’t correct. There are many schools for boys and girls around the country, there are also people who get divorced and come back into the mix, single people from all over europe and Israel, it’s not this fixed type system.

Additionally we learn just about everything from the Avos, (Ma’ase Avos siman L’Bonim) we mention Avrohom, Yitchock, and Yaakov three times a day in our davening, and the prime shidduch parsha is with Yitzchock; so we should learn how to do everything from the Avos – except when it comes to marrying a younger girl, like all three Avos; we should now do not like the Avos – and have boys marry older girls – makes a lot of sense? Where in our great history do we see this (not counting the rare one off cases) for the masses?

Someone please clarify…

Folks – unfortunately the age gap is not theory but hard mathematical fact. Since the population continues to grow every year by whatever % – if older boys keep marrying into the larger population of younger girls there will continue to be a major problem. The only way to solve this is to marry at the same or very close age. I challenge anyone to dispute this in a serious though out mathematical way. It seems to me that this keeps being discussed as though it is a theory but I have yet to see anyone explain in a real way why it would be. In my opinion this is one of the largest problems facing klal yisroel right now where thousands of people cant get married- and the one that is most preventable if we change the way we do business.

“this is one of the largest problems facing klal yisroel right now where thousands of people cant get married”
I challenge this outrageous statement. There are not thousands of single people. Stop trying to prove your point, and further your agenda, by using drastically over inflated numbers.
Here is a challenge that I pose to people when debating the “shidduch crisis,” name me all the older single girls that you know and I’ll name a older single guy. Unfortunately, I have never lost this challenge.
There are many factors as to why some people get married later or unfortunately never at all. This is true regardless of gender.

I think we are living in a transitional generation and there is a very slow but gradual upward creep in the age of kiddushin as more frum young men and women take advantage of the new programs available for college and graduate education geared towards the frum tzibur. Also, the new Administration has vowed to cut off welfare payments, food stamps, etc. for able bodied young men and women who are not working at least part time. I dont’ think they will have a special “shteiging exemption” for kollel yungerleit who refuse to work. This MAY encourage more young men and women to stay in school and get the educational skills they need to get a job and support their families, knowing that reliance on public assistance may no longer be an option in the future.

Again, the next person who directly and pointedly responds to these questions instead of insulting me and claiming I lack mathematical acumen will be the very first.

Okay, here goes.

1. Proponents of this theory inevitably believe in the concept of a bashert and that God created a soul-mate for every person born. So how do they explain from a theological perspective how God could possibly be responsible for a demographic imbalance, as only He could be?

You’re making an incorrect assumption. I am a proponent of age gap but don’t believe every single person born has an inevitable soul-mate. That’s not what Chazal said, and even the gemara about the bas kol is explained by the meforshim as not necessarily applying in all situations.

Also, Chazal say shemoneh esreh l’chupah. Don’t blame G-d for a man made crisis caused by not following Chazal.

2. How is it moral and ethical for a shadchan to suggest anything other than the most suitable match for her client, and instead let a presumed demographic issue factor into her matchmaking?

Agreed. However, in the past, many boys would not have considered an otherwise suitable girl, simply because of age. That is b”H changing. Also, there are often equally suitable (to the shadchan’s eye) matches, so proposing one which would benefit society would not be unethical.

Also, proposing shidduchim to younger boys if they and their parents and rebbeim feel they are ready doesn’t involve this issue.

3. How is it moral and ethical for a shadchan to hide from singles that they are influenced by outside factors?

I’m not sure what you mean by that, but any broker (halachah views a shadchan as a type of broker) is influenced by factors that aren’t necessarily to the benefit of his clients, and has to know the halachos of what he must and what he need not disclose.

4. If it is true that women are at such a terrible disadvantage, why are women so quick to turn down suitors, often for the most trivial reasons? That is hardly the behavior one would expect from people who are supposedly competing for a mate from an endangered species. Did single women fail to get this memo?

Whether or not women turn down men for trivial reasons (men do the same, BTW) has nothing to do with the number disparity. They obviously don’t think their reasons are trivial, and would usually say they wouldn’t marry the guy if he was the last man on Earth. Anyway, he’s not.

Again I am talking from a mathematical standpoint and there is no way around the facts. Hashem has planned this but we cant do our best to mess it up. Remember it does say ben shmonah esrah lechupah so for us to think we can get married whenever we want and blame g-d is not really right. Suggesting anecdotal evidence about how many people unmarried you know is of course meaningless. Many studies have already corroborated the mathematical reality that there are much more girls in their ninth grades across any town than for example in the 12 grade and the same for boys which is obvious. Therefore 4 years later when the 12 grade boys are marrying the ninth grade girls it doesnt work so unless you can challenge this with facts it stands as is unfortunately. It has nothing to do with shadchans, personality, level of religious observance or any other factors. It is simply not the same number of people in the pie to match. You can have 10,000 shadchans and it will not help at all. It is a huge problem facing klal yisroel and one TOTALLY man made. Please lets change how we do things so that your children will not suffer.

There are currently no less than 78 Coffee Room topics on shidduch crisis, and Joseph started no less than 79 of them. I think Joseph is lonely or needs a hobby.

oy huju, you didn’t go in there and check each one did you????

name me all the older single girls that you know and I’ll name a older single guy. Unfortunately, I have never lost this challenge.

Of course you’ve never lost. You only need to know one guy.

I say:
Malky
Chani
Toby
etc, etc, etc,

You say:
Chaim

You win!

(Sorry- I couldn’t resist. In actuality though I doubt you’d be able to come up with a list of as many single guys as the list of girls I have.)

whether there is a crisis or not, whether it is due to a an age gap or nor, whether we can fix it with some simple solutions or not, there is one thing that we should not forget during these discussions:
There are PEOPLE out there, women and men, girls and boys who are suffering because they want very much to be married but have not yet found their bsherts. They may have emuna that it will happen at the right time, and that Hashem wants them to be where they are at that particular moment, but that does not take away the pain of davening for something, only to be told “not yet.” And it is not just the frustration of wanting to fulfill an important tafkid but not being able to, it is also the feeling of not really being part of society, being marginalized, no longer being a child, but not accepted by others as an adult, having to tolerate (with a smile, no less) people’s judgmentalism and personally invasive questions. Put yourself for one moment in the shoes of someone going through this nisayon, and then go daven that no one should have to feel such pain.

RY: “The people who can’t get married are the people who are already married. Single people can get married.”

RY – +1

I have an idea – you work on the statistics, research, data collection and pr of finding worldwide solutions to the shidduch crisis/age gap stuff, and we’ll work on finding people to fix our friends up with.

I didn’t write that we should do things exactly the same as the Avos, just like I dont think we should live in tents, travel on camels, live without bathrooms or refrigeration, etc. I did point out Ma’ase Avos Siman L’Banim – we’re supposed to learn from the actions of the Avos how to act; all the Avos married girls younger then they were – not older. Yosef married a girl younger than himself, as did Moshe, Aharon – I can go on and on, straight through Tanach. We’re any of Dovid’s 18 wives older than him? Do you know of a Tana or Amorah that married an older girl – how about from the Geonim or Rishonim?

We know the historical jewish trend – you can go to a jewish cemetery in europe – in many cases the couples are buried side by side, and in some cases the husband in front of the wife – you can see when they were born and died. A random sampling of the population is the best way to get an accurate picture. If you go, you will see the overwhelming majority, is the husband older than than the wife. You can also go through geni.com, where many multi-generational jewish families are listed – again you’ll see the overwhelming majority is the husband older than the wife going back hundred’s of years.

The germans (ym”s) kept pretty meticulous records. If you’re interested in looking you’ll see the same thing. Husbands older than wives by an overwhelming margin.

I know Yocheved was born bein hachomos as you note, and I dont recall Amram in the count of the 70 who went down, so I think you are correct, but as you yourself point out – this is an exceptional case.

and we’ll work on finding people to fix our friends up with.

Did someone say or imply not to?

Years ago boys and girls used to marry at 12 or 13 then society changed and they started to marry at older ages. Time to change again. Would be better if no girls would date until they were 23. This would level the dating ages and also give girls time to go to school and learn careers.

“Being concerned about, and especially taking achrayus for an issue that affects the tzibur, is not a chisaron in emunah”

Yup, that’s just what I said.
But choosing to call it a shiddich crisis, wasting valuable time, resources and brain power, on the invention, support, and publicity of this new theory and all its details instead certainly is.

So says you.

The talmidei chachomim advising those involved disagree.

Ubiquitin – This is definitely a record. I agree with everything you wrote except for the last sentence of your first post which I’m not sure about (but even that depends on exactly what you meant by it. It is somewhat ambiguous and open to interpretation).

I would also add that aside from being an inaccurate analogy, I find the musical chairs analogy to be extremely offensive and a terrible way to view the process of getting married. It is particularly offensive to girls, especially since the Torah view is that it is the guy who is supposed to be seeking his missing half and not the other way around.