lightbrite: Also, doesn’t Judaism emphasize love coming after marriage? It sounds like there is an assumption that young marriages result with someone marrying someone of whom one “doesnt really like” (Sparkly).
Not exactly. It’s not that we emphasize “love coming after marriage”. It’s that most people don’t really understand the concept of “love” until after they are married. What we think we mean by “falling in love” takes on a whole different meaning after one is married. I remember reading (either in Dr. Wikler’s book Bayis Ne’man Byisroel or Rabbi Kaplan’s book Made in Heaven) about a person saying that young people “think” they are in love. Ask couples who are married 50 years and they will tell you how they know they are in love.