Reply To: The differences between Yeshivish and Chasidish marriages

Okay, I can’t prove to you it was such for “thousands” of years. Would hundreds of years make you happier?

More importantly, how exactly do you think shidduchim were conducted in Lita from the time of the Vilna Gaon leading up to World War I? Basically as I described. Not too differently than how the Chasidim do it.

And for the hundreds of years before the Vilna Gaon? Maybe a bit differently. Maybe the father of the boy made a deal with the father of the girl when the children were both three years old that they will marry them off to each other when they turn 16. We certainly have many such maaiselech and they weren’t made up.

That’s how it was done, once upon a time. (Or as they said in Lita “in der alte tzeiten”, or as we say in America “in the good ‘ole days”.)