Reply To: Rechnitz – There is no Shidduch Crisis

Another point – if we really want to solve the age-gap issue, we need to get the 19-year-old girls off he market. When boys start dating, whether they are 21 or 24, they should be required to go out with girls older than themselves or within 1 or 2 years younger. Part of the problem is that the girls are desperate and therefore enter the market at 19. Once they hand in their resume, they are given boys and these boys are often 2+ years older then them. This should be stopped. If all 23-year-old boys give the 21-23 year-old girls a chance before the 19-year-olds then it will help even the age gap.

The big question is how to enforce this. Shadchanus is a business and shadchanim will continue to do whatever has the best chance of working. If setting up 19-year-old girls has the best chance of results, that is what they will do, no matter how much money you throw at them for the older crowd. There is no oversight of the “business”. So it is hard to enforce anything unless each rosh yeshiva encourages his own talmidim to follow the “rules” and not go out with the 19-year-olds. Everybody, man and woman, considers themselves the exception (and they might be right). The problem is that there is nobody to enforce any such takanos. If just a few roshei yeshiva don’t follow the rules, the 19-year-olds will get dates and that will ruin the whole system.