Reply To: Younger siblings waiting for older to get engaged

Haimy
Can anyone actually prove that this is halachically acceptable?
Preventing someone from getting married and inflicting unnecessary pain sounds kind of evil.
Lets look at the situation
two girls aged 24 and 21 are on the market with the 21 year old getting engaged first. Age 24 feels pain over this. So the theory is prevent age 21 from going out to not “inflict” said pain on 24.
Several problems
1) 24 is only feeling pain because she is jealous and lacks bitachon. A baal middos would be happy for the sister
2) 21 didn’t inflict anything, she simply got engaged. At most you could “blame” Hashem, not the sister
3) Preventing people from getting married sounds a lot like the sins of bnei eli. What gives a parent the right to inflict (and imprison) 21 ?!
The only possible way to do this correctly is with the full agreement of 21, otherwise you are causing harm that you have no right to cause.
A normal parent doesn’t do this to their kids. Unfortunately I know people who did it with disastrous results. I know girls who went behind their parents back and BH got married.
I would never do this to my children and have told them for years that Hashem is in charge of their shiduchim and each will get married when the RBSO wants it to happen.