“The Cherem deRabbenu Gershom conversation is a bit far fetched too. There are much simpler answers to the crisis, that would require a bit of maturity instead of a complete transformation of the marital and familial structure of our society.”
Yayin: Again, to reiterate, even with the relaxation of the Cherem (and only with the directives of Gedolei Yisroel, of course), it would only be relevant for a very small number of marriage. 95+% of marriages will continue to be monogamous. Only a tiny low single digits percentage of marriages being polygynous will be sufficient to alleviate the disparity in numbers between males and females in the Shidduch parsha.
Additionally, only a small number of men will be capable (financially, emotionally, etc) of supporting multiple wives and only a small number of women will be willing to be part of a polygynous family. So it will be self-correcting and only affect a few.
“If we can’t convince litvishe girls to be willing to date wonderful chassidish boys, or various other great profiles that they refuse to consider, do you really think they’d be willing to date as a second wife?”
You’re hitting upon another excellent idea. Do you not think it can be feasible to successfully be meshadech Chasidishe boys with Litvishe girls if enough effort it put into it and, perhaps, an origanized effort my Klal Yisroel is made to encourage — similar to how NASI and others have been encouraging close-in-age Shidduchim?
By the way, most self-identifying “Litvish” people come from Chasidish/Heimish family backgrounds. There are very few true Litvaks.