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The situation in E.Y. is just as bad. Litvasher-Chasddisha? A litvashe girl wants a husband like her father-home on Shabbasim, close to his daughters as well as his sons, and also his wife. And so many other differences, which can’t be mentioned here. The girl will be very sad and lonely. Here in E.Y. we hardly see such “mixed” marriages. And there are so many older Chasidisher boys, it’s really too bad.
There are also thousands of Litvashe boys. All the comments made here may be true but they cannot account for the tragedy we are facing. What is the reason? How do we explain it?
It is a gezeira min haShamayin. Nothing more, nothing less. A horrible
gezeira.So what are we supposed to do? First, try to make shidduchim. Think, maybe I do know somebody for him/her. Or ask your friends if they know someone
Second, DOVEN! We have to doven our hearts out for these boys and girls. Let’s beg H-shem to nullify the gezeira. Let’s stop blaming the singles and have rachmanus on them and their families.
V’H-shem yasmiainu v’hatzileinu.
DY
I’ll grant that an unequal number might be part of the problem.
It doesnt exaplian the Shidduch crises” as it is widly described and as Haimy described it
he says “the problem starts when a boy lands in Lakewood & immediately (in many cases) has a long list of girls 19-24 to go out with. Of course the youngest, more chashuv, beautiful, wealthy, etc. girls move to the top of the list. … Meanwhile, the average excellent girls sit waiting for a date& growing older. Repeat this over & over & you have a crisis.”I agree. Though this has nothing (ok little) to do with age gaps
“Litvasher-Chasddisha? A litvashe girl wants a husband like her father-home on Shabbasim, close to his daughters as well as his sons, and also his wife. And so many other differences, which can’t be mentioned here. The girl will be very sad and lonely. Here in E.Y. we hardly see such “mixed” marriages. And there are so many older Chasidisher boys, it’s really too bad.”
So the Chasidish boys are going to become alte bochors and the Litvish girls will become old maids because they’d rather be alone all their life than marry a Chasidish boy or a Litvish girl?
This is a popular subject in the CR, and it repeats itself often with new threads, and only occasionally new participants to the discussion. I find these repetitive threads a bit bothersome. I find comments from people who seem intelligent, but i find it bewildering the read these foregone conclusions on the subject.
Firstly, there seems to be no agreed upon definition of the “shidduch crisis”.
Secondly, there has been no reputable, reliable research to assess this to determine if any crisis exists.
Thirdly, there is an unquestioned set of norms that has varied over the years, with many nuances and variations about different subgroups of the frum community. With this situation being more fluid than static, and the systems of shadchanim remaining relatively the same, there cannot be anything smooth expected.
Fourthly, the success of a shidduch remains as the fulfillment of the bas kol of “Bas ploni l’ploni”. That is not subject to a group norm or a societal trend. It is an individual matter, and involves the Divine Intervention of Hashgochas Hashem, and it doesn’t respond to statistical realities.
So it might be a nice thing to make various forms of hishtadlus. I await some reliable empirical study to see if there is a problem, what the nature of it is, and an idea of the numbers. Until then, it is little more than a journalist’s fodder.
The real reason for the so called SHIDUCH crisis with so many older single girls,is a very simple one and everybody knows it but hasn’t the guts to come out and say it.
the reason is a simple one ” a large percentage of boys in the frum so called chareidi circles are just not marriageable material,in other words they are simply boys with problems either off the derech either completely or half ways or just not frum enough or have problems with either “drinking or drugs or mental issues etc,etc,
on the other hand with the girls the percentage of girls with these problems is much smaller than with boys,that is just a fact of life and no one can deny it. therefore this shidduch crisis is absolutely inevitable and really has no solution,there simply is not enough decent average boys available for the amount of decent average girls who are looking for husbands” but hasn’t the guts to come out and say it.”
Wow that was brave of you
Though sorry to burst your bubble it was said in literally the first comment (after the op) on this threadThe real reason for the so called SHIDUCH crisis with so many older single girls,is a very simple one and everybody knows it but hasn’t the guts to come out and say it.
the reason is a simple one ” a large percentage of boys in the frum so called chareidi circles are just not marriageable materialCan’t there be multiple reasons? Can’t we deal with one reason if it will minimize the problem, even if it can’t eliminate it?
I’ll grant that an unequal number might be part of the problem.
It doesnt exaplian the Shidduch crises” as it is widly described and asHow is the shidduch crisis widely described, and how does it differ from reality?
Firstly, there seems to be no agreed upon definition of the “shidduch crisis”.
Yep
I know this was mentioned many, many times….what would happen to Freddie Friedmans list of 2000 girls if instead of handing out half a dozen girls names to a bunch of boys, he did the reverse, he gave each girl the name of half a dozen boys. what would the downside be? I dont buy, the girls cant handle rejection argument, since by almost all accounts the girls in shidduchim are way more mature, and way ahead in life than the boys they are dating (which is probably the biggest factor in the problems the current system faces).
“How is the shidduch crisis widely described, ” ”
The shidduch crises is widely described as many single girls wating and hoping for a date (ie the back log occurs at step 4 that I laid out,) you sort of agreed and said 4-10, (ok so lets go in order 4 is the first step where the problem occurs ) The OP said the same “has a long list of girls 19-24 to go out with. Of course the youngest, more chashuv, beautiful, wealthy, etc. girls move to the top of the list”
As explained above the problem is not that there are not enough boys. (100 boys can easily date 110 girls) . Thus efforts to even the playing field by adding more boys that wont date the girls who arent getting dates is a distractor at best
“and how does it differ from reality?”
It doesnt.I think money would do the trick. A big bank account never hurts. There are so many good guys out there that get rejected due to not having $100,000 income. Less than that “can’t” support a family. It also doesn’t help that the info the girls get from their parents and “friends” influence their minds that way.
chugibugi
I would love to hear some statistics to support your contention that there are fewer truly frum boys compared to truly frum girls. Please cite some sources.
Meanwhile, the attention of the street to OTD kids focuses on boys, not on girls. This is not because of any statistical differences, but because there are more askanim available to deal with them than with girls. Furthermore, creating yeshivos for struggling boys who would otherwise be on the street and in everyone’s faces is more luring for support than girls who struggle. Yes, this is according to many who are on the front lines working with these youth and their parents. With all the attention to this issue, there is no real dent in the availability of boys or girls, so this is not statistically meaningful.
I would urge you to make calls to some of the organizations who are involved with this issue, such as MASK and Amudim. See if they detect any differences in numbers between boys and girls.
litvishechossid:
I must differ with you. Bank accounts do not create marriages, and the lack of them do not break them. In marriages that struggle, finances can be factors of disagreement and argument. But pouring money into the bad marriage won;t save it. Putting it into a forming marriage will not dictate the connection between the couple. It might pay bills, but there’s plenty else to fight about. Just ask anyone who counsels couples in trouble. There are fools who discuss money before entertaining a shidduch prospect. I have my bone to pick with them, as they are not true maaminim in the Bas Kol, and they can easily miss the bashert for a form of greed that goes not a baby step beyond perception. Books are loaded with stories of hashgochas Hashem in shidduchim, and becoming a gatekeeper with monetary criteria is a potential for huge trouble. I know the obsession with the “learning boy” implies that the boy will not earn a penny, while the girl will support (either rich parents or she goes to work until the children enter the picture). Yet, this is close to universal, when it should not be so. But let’s not divert focus to that debate. Money is not the real issue.
by the way i was being sarcastic in case anyone took it seriously
Please look at this stats from the us census (table MS-2) estimated median age at first marriage by male/female, going back to 1890;
Pretty clear across the board men marry younger women;
Is it because females mature earlier than males? maybe;
in talmud times marriageable age started for females before 13; for males around 18;
you may argue that men sometimes married multiple women;
that basically stopped after the cherem of R’GMH.
perhaps the ages quoted above also changed, but then need we need to go back to the us census stats;
if the theory of nassi is correct, this shiduch crisis should have appeared way back in our history, and i don;t believe it is the case. so i personally don’t see the math concurring with reality;
Maybe there are more odd boys than girls; I don’t know;
What i do know is that there are many jewish girls (& boys) in pain because they are not married and having families, and that should be painful to all of us; any efforts to solve the issue should be welcomed ; not sure it can be pinned on one reason alone , either;
One thing which could be done, if a lot more people feeling the pain would volunteer some of their time in a concerted effort to try and run more shiduchim ; as has been said, professional shadchanim focus on their income, (and i have nothing against that); but if a large effort is done by volunteers who are not looking for money, then we can have a positive influence;
perhaps a 100% free website oriented to shiduchim, well written , well designed , so volunteer shdchanim can propose matches, and/or people can search for matches , and request volunteers to match them ; i would even have an eYente 🙂 thereI believe a fair amount of the problem is that we have 50% of the girls being told they have to marry the top 10% of the boys.
@littliknow
-yes i know that money “shouldnt” make or break marriages but the sad reality today is that it does. Lets face it,girls today are programmed with the whole feminist,equal opportunity, equal rights, egalitarian,women empowerment, women in the work force, and all that stuff that has negatively impacted their thought process and expectations toward guys. It is a shame but it obviously affects many “frum” women who dwell in this. On one hand its hard to blame them since nowadays most of them have college degrees and “careers”, so they expect no less from the potential guy they will marry.
The reality though, is that not every guy fits their dreamy description of a perfect match. Some guys just “work” for a living through an honest job, make enough money to support and also aspire to get progress in life. Many girls dont understand that not everything will come wrapped up in a perfect bow and delivered to them on day one. If they truly believed what they write in their profiles regarding “I want someone so that we can grow together”, things would be different. But obviously they dont want to “grow together” , they want the finished product. And on top of all that, they want a full time learner, earner, and full time husband in the house. Go figure how that works?Unfortunately the sad reality today has A LOT to do with money. Girls have a very narrow list of what jobs they are willing to accept. And they work as well so even more so it shouldnt be a problem. But hey, my money is mine, and your money is mine as well so go get a career!
Joseph
I ran your idea by my wife
She’s perfectly fine with helping out the crisis by bringing a co-wife on board
As long as she’s 400 lbs and rich.“What we see all around us is not a valid study”
Especially since others like myself see the opposite.
“More girls than boys still theoretically allows each girl to go out on equal dates.”
Why only theoretically?
“There won’t be enough boys for the girls to marry regardless if they all got a date”
Perhaps. Though this isn’t the problem we are currently facing. (As you identified) take it one step at a timeMentsch1: My idea doesn’t require pre-approval from your existing spouse(s). So you needn’t accept her conditions. 😉
DY – we’re not looking at 100 boys and 100 girls. We’re looking at one year’s worth of boys at 23 going out with five years’ worth of (younger) girls. I’m all for the new movement to start boys in the parshah at 21. That will cut down the number of ‘extra” girls by almost half.
Starting boys earlier may also avoid some going off the derech, too. And no, every boy doesn’t need to learn a year or more in EY, any more than every girl needs to go to seminary in EY for a year. Sending a young person who’s never been away from home to a different continent where they know few if any adults is a good prescription for trouble. Just because everybody else is doing it doesn’t mean it’s sensible. Keeping up with “yenem” isn’t a good criterion for our behavior.
The elephant in the room (something no one wants to discuss) is kollel. If the girls are told throughout high school and seminary that they MUST marry kollel then of course this eliminates a large pool of eligible men
If someone learning in Lakewood has a list of 50-100 girls then of course he can “demand” 10-15 years of support a house etc. as well as beautiful (my wife is a shadchan and she has been told this on several occasions!Haimy: Specifically what histadlus do you think will help towards fixing this problem you described in your last comment?
I don’t understand the term nasi people and anti Nasi people. What NASI has stated is a mathematical fact. Disputing it is akin to saying that 3+3=8 If there is a different amount of people in the parshah at any time there will always be an issue regardless of any and all other issues like how shidduchim are red. who’s off the derech, who is learning or not, how much money anyone has, etc… please think critically about this and avoid spewing silly ideas that don’t bear on the simple 3 rd grade mathematics
“Let’s assume we all became shadchanim & managed to marry of every last frum boy aged 22-39 in the US. How many girls would be left single? Many hundreds if not thousands.”
I do not think that is true, and you have no data to support it. You claim to see that, but I see the opposite .
At any rate though wouldnt it be wonderful if “every last frum boy aged 22-39 in the US. ” was married. Lets work towards that and worry any possible remaining girls later“How does Redding a shiddach help the situation?”
As a big rebbe once said the biggest segula to get married is to date. If more girls get dates then more girls will get married) (or at the least progress to step 5 in the outline I layed out earlier)“f we get the girls in the market engaged now before the next 1000 girls enter the market they will have less candidates to compete with.”
Its not a closed system. Girls and boys are constatly entering “the market”“This whole conversation comes from a lack of bitachon”
Ahh, now you got itHaimy – I’m sorry for your frustration. You seem to want an answer for this crisis and pool of thousands but won’t allow for the possibility that not everyone agrees there is a pool of thousands. You believe the numbers claim so you want to know how others explain it away. Well it has been said many a time that not everyone buys into it so it doesn’t need explaining. Like the claim that there “probably are” 100’s of elderly women as well. There is not adequate validity to the numbers. If you want to buy into it, feel free. But don’t be foolish enough to assume there isn’t a different perspective.
” Lets work towards that and worry any possible remaining girls later”
I’m inThere’s a simple solution to close this “age Gap”. Girls start shidduchim later. Instead of going to seminary for a year, they should go for 2 years.
Or shadchanim shouldn’t take resumes from girls below 20.
The facts are boys can’t start start earlier, they need to learn for a few years post high school.Moshe Dovid is right, long term Kollel is not for everyone. It’s important to learn for a year or two to establish Torahdig home. Girls shold be taught that frum boys are worthy marriage candidates even if they are not planning to learn for long term or even not at all in Kollel
One thing that always puzzled me was that boys who were in their upper twenties and already had their 5 years of learning would still insist on 5 years of support! Hello! You had your 5 years already!Um has anyone thought maybe this crisis is caused by the will of Hashem?
UB -“Hello! You had your 5 years already!”
I still want to learn in Kollel! I also want a new car & a new house like e/o else.
And my wife has to have a job that starts at 50 – 60 grand – min.From a SHADCHAN point of view:
From my own experience, a lot of so called OPEN MINDED MATURE GIRLS just go out dating for the sake of dating, they’re not serious about getting married, it’s just in style, then a year or 2 later it becomes tricky, since the serious girls found their BASHERTE, so these girls are left behind,
I’ve heard from the SKVER REBBE, that it would be a good idea for the boy’s and girls to get married as early & as young as possible, like this none of the 2 are yet matured, so they grow up together, each knows what the other wants, as opposed if they get married when they are both mature starts frictions, since both have a mind of their own,
It’s a SHITA to think about,Um has anyone thought maybe this crisis is caused by the will of Hashem?
Of course it is. That doesn’t mean He doesn’t want is to do our hishtadlus to alleviate it.
ay 6, 2018 11:11 pm at 11
May 6, 2018 11:12 pm at 11:12 pm#1517077REPLY
Midwest2Participant
DY – we’re not looking at 100 boys and 100 girls. We’re looking at one year’s worth of boys at 23 going out with five years’ worth of (younger) girls. I’m all for the new movement to start boys in the parshah at 21. That will cut down the number of ‘extra” girls by almost half.Starting boys earlier may also avoid some going off the derech, too.
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If as you say that Starting boys earlier may also avoid some going off the derech, too, then what does that say about out chinuch system?
Your basically saying that our chinuch dystem stinks!.There are 1000’s of older unmarried bachurim as well, nassi is wrong on many accounts. Men have always married woman that were younger than them, not only in the Jewish world, but also in the goyishe world, this is natural. There has never been such a shidduch crisis during peace times, this is unnatural. It is not because of the age gap, and the crisis is not unique to woman. There are several reasons for it, but I will not elaborate now. First people need to get their facts right before they can analyze and theorize.
Takes-2: Pirkei Avos says Shemona Esra LeChuppa for a reason. To blame natural human tendencies on our Chinuch system is not logical. Some shtark learners WITH solid Yiras shamayim might have it easier and benefit from a longer Yeshiva stay, but it doesn’t apply to everyone. I would add it to Chinoch lenar… Yiddishkeit also includes fences, and we need to know what kind of fences are needed where.
In the end people would be much more sympathetic to Nassi if they didnt charge so much money, One gets the feeling they are making alot of money out of peoples fears and not L’Shem hashem
I have made a few Shidduchim in my life and I was offered payment and I refused, I refuse to take money for that,
ZD, NASI doesn’t charge money.
1
shlomo_frid -“Pretty clear across the board men marry younger women;
Is it because females mature earlier than males? maybe;
in talmud times marriageable age started for females before 13; for males around 18;”I agree! We should go back to the olden times. Boys at 18; Girls at 13.
chymee -“From a SHADCHAN point of view:
From my own experience, a lot of so called OPEN MINDED MATURE GIRLS just go out dating for the sake of dating, they’re not serious about getting married, it’s just in style, then a year or 2 later it becomes tricky, since the serious girls found their BASHERTE, so these girls are left behind,”If you do what I just posted – no girl would just go out for the sake of dating! They’re too busy doing their HOMEWORK!!!
The disparity is: Too many girls who want learning boys vs. Not as many learning boys.
If you check out the “working boy world”, there are plenty of older singles there.Actually there are a bunch of (older and younger) girls who are trying to find a working boy but there aren’t enough working boys for all the girls looking for a working boy.
If you check out the “working boy world”, there are plenty of older singles there.
I do think they may be harder to match up.
Specifically, I think there are a lot of girls who are looking for “learning boys” who happen to be working, but most “learning boys” are not working.
Given that there are approximately 2 million frum yidden in the world, roughly half of whom are women, is is really surprising that there are “thousands” of young women (aka “younger girls”) that remain unmarried at any point in time. Ideally, every young woman who wants to be married should be fortunate to find her bashert but after reading nearly 100 posts on this thread (and a gazillion of other threads) its still not clear what “singles rate” constitutes a “crisis” and when we will know when the crisis has been solved (other than when there are no new CR threads on the subject over a 3 month period).
I’m assuming most of the posters are married BH. As a single in shidduchim for over 15 years, I’ll tell you what I find the most difficult in shidduchim. Firstly, in the “olden day’s” where there was no official Bais Yaakov schools and the girls were educated at home by their mothers and the boys by their fathers, not only did the parents know their children better, but the children respected their parents’ decisions and the parents mostly did their childrens’ shidduchim without too much input by the children other than meeting once or twice. (Read all the gedolim books…) I think a major problem nowadays is the independence of children. Girls are sent out of the home from 8:30-4:30 getting education from others and developing an opinion of their own outside of their home, whether by educators or their peers. Then they go off to a year or two of seminary and continue on to college where their independent mindsets are further solidified, as well as bochurim who go off to years away to Yeshiva and develop a Kesher with their Rabbaim who may have a different hadhkafah than their upbringing. This leaves it that when it comes to shidduchim, girls and boys are more reliant on their mechanchim/mechanchos and peers to redt them shidduchim because at that point the parents are more or less out of the picture. I find that where the parents and girls are on the same page, the shidduchim go faster. Girls and boys who become shtarker than their parents or vice versa are left on their own devices and that can add years to the search as they have to do all the leg work on their own. If people would “adopt” a single they know in such a position and do the work like a parent would, there would be many more shidduchim happening at a quicker pace. Thank you.
Avocado:
How do you check out the “working boys world”? Is there some dating website for kollel yungerleit called workingboysvelt.com ???
Another aspect of these threads that stands out is the absence of any really verifiable data on the subject. Lots of anecdotal observations but little emperical data.
When the Gzeira of Rabeinu Gershon is over this problem will be over as well
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