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

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#1351015
WinnieThePooh
Participant

vestin- You asked for clarification. I don’t think any Torah authority would encourage following the Avos/Imahos examples when it comes to marriage. Their situations were unique in that they were forming Klal Yisroel. Maase Avos Siman LBonim does not mean that we are supposed to conduct our lives exactly the way they did, but rather that their actions/experiences foreshadow the experiences of their children and is the spiritual foundation of their descendant’s future actions (e.g. Avraham went down to Mitzrayim, so did Bnei Yaakov, etc) (at least that is the way I have always learned the phrase).
You claim that we can learn from the Avos that boys should marry younger girls. Let’s see exactly how that worked- Yitzchak got married at 40, Rivka was 3. hmm, are you advocating a 37 yr age gap between couples? Yaakov got married at 84 (he had a really long “freezer” period in Yeshiva Shem V’Ever, apparently), and had a 7 yr engagement to Rochel (ended up being Leah). I don’t think anyone even thinks we should follow the Avos’ lead in these matters. (not to mention marrying more than 1 wife). How does a 24 year old boy marrying a 19 year old girl fit what the Avos did any more than a 24 year boy marrying a 23 yr old or a 25 yr old?
Except for the Avos, I don’t think we even know what the trend over history is in terms of ages of the couple getting married. An exception is Amram and Yocheved- Amram is not listed as one of those going down to Mitzrayim, so he was born in Mitzrayim, Yocheved was born as they went down, bein hachomos, so she was older- by a lot, even, since she was 130 when Moshe was born, and Amram only lived 137 yrs, and at least according to Rashi, there were many years of overlap between Amram and Moshe after Moshe was born.