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isnt 18 – 19 a bit too young? they still need to learn about the real world, etc…? shouldnt 21 be the normal age to get married once the person is settled down?
18 is the best age.
Ben Shmona Esrey L’Chupa.
Chazal disagrees with you, Sparkly.
There is no “normal age.” Every person is different and only they can decide for themselves when they are ready to get married. If someone is mature enough at eighteen that he can handle the complexities of a marriage, then by all means. If he’s not, then he should wait until he is ready.
The Wolf
To quote the old Ex-Lax commercial:
“Normal is what’s normal for you.”
Every family and/or community has different standards.
Our family is of the baal batim class. We attend yeshiva and/or seminary then college and professional schools.
Thus we don’t marry as teens…22-23 is our norm, later if delaying marriage until finishing Law or Medical Schools.
Other families marry off their children as soon as they have finished high school or its equivalent level in a yeshiva.
Personally I don’t feel many children this young are equipped to run a household and educated enough to earn a living to support spouse and children. I believe a parent has the obligation to educate their children, I don’t believe that a parent has to support married children who are ill-equipped to earn a living. A helping hand is one thing, total support is another.
BTW, this is not a new phenomena in my family. Both sets of grandparents married in NY in 1919. My grandfathers were both 24 and had established their own businesses, One grandmother was 20, the other 19 and both had completed high school and a year’s bookkeeping course. Both did the books for the family’s business throughout their married lives.
My parents married in Feb 1944, one week after mom graduated college, dad had finished the preceding June and was working a war job for the government in Washington DC.
My brothers and I married at about age 24-25 after finishing law school. My sister married at 21 immediately after finishing college.
Three of my children are married, all attended professional school and were approx 24 years old at the time of their weddings.
This is not the typical of those who plan to spend their life in Chinuch, but someone has to earn enough to support all our institutions.
Wolf, what if he or she doesn’t feel ready by age 30? Continue waiting?
If someone doesn’t feel ready by thirty, something is probably wrong.
Today’s 18 year olds are too coddled. Many girls are brainwashed into glorifying a life of poverty when they have no clue what that entails. The nineteenth century 18 year old shtetl girls LIVED a life of grinding poverty and saw nothing glorious about it. They married young because it meant one less mouth to feed. Today’s coddled 18 year olds, boys and girls, MO, yeshivish, chassidish, have no clue. Nathan Handwerker, founder of Nathan’s in Coney Island, was born Galicia into an Orthodox family and could not remember a time he was not hungry.
Sparkly…………
I was born and grew up and still live in CT. My parents and older siblings were from NY. We are what we used to call European Traditional Jews. Father’s side is Litvak, mother’s side-German-a mixed marriage. In the USA since approx 1868. Still observant. We all went to day schools then either half day yeshiva for high school and public high school in afternoon for secular and then college and professional schools.
My kids did day schools and yeshiva high schools, the girls a year of Seminary before college, boys two years of full time learning before college, then law school.
We typically are the Jews who maintain the local shuls, including those where we used to live as well as the cemeteries and support all Jewish Day Schools in the state, Federation, Hillel, Jewish Family Service, the local mikvehs, and all the collectors who pass through.
Active in local politics, and I am a Liberal Democrat, I still give to Agudah and have an endowment fund at Ezras Torah. We live well, but don’t have to keep up with the Cohens…no noveau riche McMansion in Monsey, Deal or New Jersey.
My great grandparents started on the lower east side, my grandparents and parents in Brooklyn and the Bronx, working their way up the socio-economic ladder while not foresaking orthodoxy. We are not like the post WWII immigrant community or the great post 1980 shift to the extreme right. We get along with all factions. I’m as likely to write a check for Kiryat Sanz Laniado Hospital as the ADL…a misnagid who believes in supporting all Jews and their institutions.
We make money the old fashioned way, we work hard for it. We save, invest and give tzedaka.
There is no “normal” as it is not only dependent on the individual but the society they live in. What was the “average” age for marriage in the late 1800’s (especially in Europe) we would today in the United States be illegal age to marry in most states. I know a couple who have been married close to 50 years who were married when he was 20 and she was 19 based on the advice of R’ Moshe Feinstein.
In New York State the minimum age possible to legally get married is age 14. And every year there are marriage licenses issued to 14 and 15 year olds.
It depends on the person. My best friend got engaged at 17, she’s chassidish and YES she was ACTUALLY ready. She was aware from a young age that marriage is in 12th grade, she saw other family members maturing at a quicker rate than the outside world.
Throughout high school she thought about shidduchim, it wasn’t as though one day a shidduch was suggested and she decided to marry the guy.
Everyone is different. I know people married at 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23…and they were all ready. The 23 yr old ans 16 yr old were equally ready.
Some people know about the real world at 16 and 17. I sure did. But just becuase you know what’s out there doesn’tmean you are ready for marriage. Marriage isn’t about that.
Are we talking about boys or girls? There’s a big difference.
Also, as others have said, there is no “normal”. There is, perhaps, a “standard” or “typical” age to get married– but again, that will vary by community and certainly is different for boys vs. girls. And even then, there are those who will marry younger or older than the “standard” for their community, because people are people and they have different life experiences that lead them down different paths.
Of course, it doesn’t really matter, because you could be “ready to get married” or believe that you should get married at a certain age, but if Hashem doesn’t send you your bashert at that time, it simply won’t happen. So there’s no use worrying about it.
wolfish musings – who finished college by 18?
I didn’t say anything about college. Furthermore, finishing college is not (and should not be) a prerequisite to marriage. I wasn’t done with college when I got married, and neither was Eeees (in fact, we both took a class together after we were married).
We got married at 21 and 19. We were ready then.
Wolf, what if he or she doesn’t feel ready by age 30? Continue waiting?
Yes. What are you going to do? Force someone to get married against their will? If they don’t want to/are not ready to get married, then they shouldn’t. That applies when they are twenty, thirty, forty, sixty or even eighty.
The Wolf
You have a chiyuv to get married at a young age without waiting too long. Shulchan Aruch says beis din can force someone to marry if he’s 20 years old and says he isn’t ready to get married.
If someone isn’t ready to be bar mitzvah’d at 13 should he push it off?
oh come now. do you bring comparisons like that in on purpose or are you really hoping to trip someone up?
I was being rhetorical about the bar mitzvah. I thought that would be obvious.
but it’s hardly a parallel so why bring it?
I think it is a decent parallel to express the point I was conveying.
Sparkly: when has Shopping ever mentioned that her family or school are Chasidish? You really need to read up on old posts before you chime in.
Joseph: Yes here in NY it is 14……………but only under the following conditions:
If either applicant is 14 or 15 years of age, such applicant(s) must present the written consent of both parents and a justice of the Supreme Court or a judge of the Family Court having jurisdiction over the town or city in which the application is made.
Moderator: I know but since it is an NY State web site:
link removed
As to your rhetorical question: Yes I agree with your point but not the parallel example of Bar Mitzvah age. Especially since I have never heard of a Beis Din today forcing anyone of any age to get married.
I can tell from sparkly’s writing she’s a girl. We female teens have this writing style it’s easy to pick it out from the crowd.
Sparkly,what I’m saying is marriage is much more than “knowing what goes on out there”. In this specific friend, she actually knew about the outside world at an age younger than I (an american BY litvish girl) did.
But even if she did’t, they know what they need to know. You don’t have to know about TV or what a movie is to have a great marriage (her husband doesn’t) and that’s okay! I know it may seem like you do, but you don’t.
Sure some couples really aren’t ready and are pushed into it because if they don’t marry at 18, they are considered “old”. But the same thing happens by us. There are 21 year old girls “not ready” and people push them into it for the same reason.
Sometimes it feels like (when you are a teen- I have a right to say this to you, for I am one myself although I think perhaps a bit older) that one who does not know about certain secular ideas must be a fool/moron/immature/dumb/naive/and more. But it really isn’t that way, we just put those people down because our neshomah knows they are more pure because they haven’t watched, seen, and listened to the things we have. Our neshomah is jealous of them. So we put them down as being sumb and naive to make us feel better.
They aren’t dumb and naive. Marriage is about selflessness, caring for one for than you do, knowing you are giving up your single life to take full time care of a yeshivah bochur and turn him into a man. Knowing that it won’t be easy, knwoing you need to compromise, that they’ll be fights, the life has problems, that things aren’t perfect
And none of those things depend on the “outside” (secular) world. The time you understand all of this depends on how your parents brought you up, personality, older sisters, life expirience, schooling.
This is my point. Rivka knew all this at age 3. It’s ok. It’s ok to say other girls can get all this before you do.
Wolfish Musings. Now one will 100 percent be ready for marriage, it’s like jumping in the pool for the first time. You can know how to swim but you can’t know how it feels to jump in the deep end til you jump.
iacisrmma, as I mentioned, every year in NYS there are a number of marriage licenses issued for people of those ages.
As far as beis din, the reason you never heard of such an enforcement action is simply because today in America and elsewhere beis din doesn’t have enforcement powers. Beis din also has rights to force people to do a large number of other things, including via the use of corporal punishment, but the civil laws nowadays prevent beis din from excersing said powers halacha grants them. Until a hundred or so years ago butei dinim would routinely utilize their enforcement powers.
The answer is when they think they can raise and support a family. My opinion is that boys should start going out at 22-25. Learn for a year or two full time, then go to college at night and graduate. This way he can support a family.
The problem is the older they get the more set in their ways and the less likely they are to get married, which is why many rabbis advise to get married as early as possible.
In the religious non hasidic community the typical age is 21 for females and 23-25 for males. People who marry below that age are very helpful. They help us to understand the high divroce rate nowadays
“And every year there are marriage licenses issued to 14 and 15 year olds.”
Joseph – How do you know this?
Even if someone does feel they are ready to get married at the age of 16/17 (I personally know girls who did) fact is, they are still children.
They haven’t lived that long yet, so whats the rush? One can always do more maturing.
Abba S: and the more set in their ways they are, the harder they adjust to married life if/when they actually do get married. The question is if their gained maturity can compensate for a possible shortage in flexibility.
Joseph, batei din routinely issue rulings that they know will not be followed. That’s no argument. If they really believed it was so important, they would make these rulings so that their position would be clear, and it would send a message to Klal Yisroel.
adocs: there’s been studies on it. Google it.
Pringles: and a lot of people DO wait even when they are ready. How can a litvish 16 year old go into shidduchim? Most girls want to live a normal life, enjoy being a teen, so even if they are ready they won’t marry that young (unless they are chassidish). But if a good shidduch is presented, even if the girl is 16, why wait?
Tzipi Caton married at 17 I beleive….and was engaged at 16.
Plus a 16 yr old is NOT a child, she is a young adult. I was posting on the CR before I was even 16.
I totally agree with you Abba S
Shopping 613 – Great Post!!!! (the long one).
You made some really important points and expressed them well! I especially agree with you about the types of things one needs to know before he/she gets married and the things that he/she does not need to know. I also agree that people need to be more open-minded about the fact that different people can be ready to get married at different ages.
Shopping 613 -“I can tell from sparkly’s writing she’s a girl. We female teens have this writing style it’s easy to pick it out from the crowd”
I can tell without that!
Because Feivel didn’t correct her outlandish grammar.
He only corrects mine, because I’m male!
Sparkly: when they marry young they mature TOGETHER.
Sparkly -“health – please stop being against feminism its kinda of rude to us (girls).”
You misunderstand me. I not against feminism per se. Just a lot of times it contradicts the Torah!
I’m a Frum Jew.
In a lot of communities men are 22 or 23 and women are significantly younger. Thus, in a growing population, there’s a deficit of men for the women……..
How has this thread not gone in this direction yet?
Sparkly, no one makes up halachos about women not driving. In some communities, the accepted minhag is that women don’t drive. If someone chooses to consider herself a member of such a community, it is possible that halachically it is assur for her to drive, since there are halachos about minhag hamakom and listening to one’s Rav.
You do have to belong to such a community, and you do not have to understand their minhagim either. What you do have to do is to learn to respect other’s minhagim even if you don’t choose to follow them. I personally would not want to be part of a community where women are not allowed to drive, but I have no problem respecting them and I certainly would not go around criticizing them in cyberspace.
You would be upset if they told you that it is assur for you to drive, so don’t tell them that they are doing something assur by not driving. That is the epitomy of close-mindedness.
Shopping613: Whats the difference between litvish and chassidish? Your telling me that chassidish people mature faster? So only they are mature enough to get married young?
Sparkly: So what if their opinion changes? They’ll marry someone according to what they want THEN, not what they wanted at a young age.
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