Reply To: The Math of the Age Gap

Thanks for the math lessons popa and AZ. I understand the math now, but somehow the fact that every single male born in the past 200 years got married, and there are — every year — X percent of females who have no one left to marry, even though there is always [in the assumption] an exact equal number of M’s and F’s, somehow doesn’t shtim on a conceptional level. But I see from the raw mathematical formulas that it is true.

What’s even more troubling is that none of these scenarios (population growth + age gap of husband and wives) is anything we haven’t experienced since Rabbeinu Gershom enacted his takana amongst Ashkenaz Jewry. (Before the Cherem, with multiple wives, obviously this wasn’t a problem.) So has this issue existed for the past 1,000 years and left unaddressed by Klal Yisroel? I’m not saying that is a reason to not do something about it now, but what explains the lack of a NASI organization to resolve the “age gap” crisis for the past 1,000 years? Okay, during some periods there were wars and diseases and other factors that may have reduced the male population during that period, while leaving the female population less affected. But certainly there were long stretches of periods (perhaps even most of that time) when things were quiet and the same factors were present. Yet nothing in the rabbinic sources indicates an acknowledgement of this age gap problem.