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The number one thing a girl in shidduchim faces that limits the potential shidduchim is the removal of the already married men from the dating pool.
Now that is very true!
(But I sincerely hope this doesn’t turn into another thread about the benefits of polygamy. Bad idea!)
Teimani Yidden can marry multiple wives.
As, b’derech klal, we don’t do polygamy these days, by virtue of the fact the men are married they are by definition removed from the dating pool.
Unless you’re living in a patriarchal society I don’t understand how multiple wives wouldn’t be a constant shalom bayis meltdown. Let’s say you live in modern day Israel. Now back in the day each wife would have her own tent she lived in but in our time would each wife need her own apartment? It’s impossible for a lot of families to afford even one! Would they all have to be next to each other in different neighborhoods or even cities?
Would all the families get together in one house for kiddush or would the husband have to go from dirah to dirah making kiddush for each? Or would he just do an entire seuda in once house and rotate? Imagine the jealousy and arguments that could arise from whose turn it is to have tatte for the kiddush or seuda? We are just one husband and wife and can’t go one seuda without the kids arguing over who gets to sit in which chair.
Imagine the arguments if the family spent more on the bar mitzvah/wedding/etc. of one wife’s kids than on the other wife’s. If the husband gets in an argument with one wife what is his incentive to try and make up with her when he has another wife he can just go spend time with and forget about the one he was fighting with.
These are just a few potential conflicts off the top of my head – if you really want to get into it I’m sure there are dozens more. B’kitzur it’s opening up a pandora’s box of problems. Even if polygamy could help the shidduch crisis (and who said it even could) I think it would make a much larger crisis of broken families, broken hearts and messed up kids.
Joseph, I do not think that any Yemenite would refer to himself as a Yid. That is almost as silly as one author who had the Ten Tribes living on an island, wearing streimels and saying “Good Shabbos”.
But then again the increasing divorce rate is helping to get rid of that problem.
RebYidd23: Are you saying that when girls are redt boys, some of them are actually married men?
Or that girls find out that potential dates, through friends and online dating and where ever, are really already married?
—-!!!!
Wait. Okay rewind. What?! I think I got it.
So the problem is that the married men are no longer eligible for marriage?
I’ve met many Teimanim in KJ happy to call themselves a Yid.
assurnet, how do you think Klal Yisroel managed with polygamy for thousands of years? And other than Ashkenazim, who stopped it after they moved to Europe, the rest of Klal Yisroel (Sefardim, Teimanim, etc.) continued it into modern times.
“Managing” with it back then does not mean that polygamy is the right framework for a shalom bayis-ed life for the majority of today’s Jewish women [and men, and families] living in the Western world.
RebYidd23: Do you really want to share a husband with someone?
Are you 100% against monogamy? If you were already married to a man, would you insist that he find a second, and possibly third wife?
Whoa LU called it first!
Good point. I don’t know what I am doing here but feeding the fish in the fish bowl.
Thank you
LB – what? What did I call first? And how are you feeding fish in a fish bowl? And who are you thanking? And for what?
I don’t think that polygamy was ever considered the ideal according to the Torah. The other wife is called a “Tzarah”; I wouldn’t call that managing very well.
Even Leah Imeinu felt that Rochel Imeinu took her husband from her. Imagine how lesser mortals than the Imahos HaKedoshos felt.
In Shir HaShirim, there is one kallah and one chasson. Our relationship to Hakadosh Baruch Hu is compared to the relationship between a wife and a husband (one of each).
Yet it was the right thing for Yaakov Avinu to have married multiple wives.
LU, you called the possibility that this thread had the potential to “turn into another thread about the benefits of polygamy” (LU).
So I feel like my asking, Whoa what wait? is just adding to the discussion promoting the benefits of polygamy. In other words, I was playing into the hands of the thread.
Or feeding fish in a bowl of fish waiting for people to pass by and sprinkle some fish food. Okay I admit that is not the best metaphor here.
Yepp yepp 🙂
Why would a wife be anymore jealous that her husband has another wife than a person would be jealous that he shares one father with seven other siblings?
Really? The love for one’s spouse is different than the love for one’s parents.
We leave the parent and cleave to the spouse.
How I love looking into people through their posts!!!! How it fascinates me!!
How I love looking into people through their posts!!!! How it fascinates me!!
I find the same thing. Only, besides for fascinating me, it sometimes horrifies me, or disgusts me. Other times I feel all warm and fuzzy and Mi-KeAmcho-Yisroel-ey. But I do love how much you can tell about a person from his posts. (More often than not, the things they didn’t want to show in the post)
“its time we faced reality”
YOU BET
today klal yisroel is holding on a very low level of bitachon & emunah (faith & trust) in hashem, when a tragedy occurs R”L a person immediately looks for a way out so he could avoid the wakeup call from Hashem of why the tragedy happened R”L. but in all honesty we know the truth of why it happened. we are just facing a major problem of FACING REALITY…. now -before the tzaros gets worse C”V- is the time to confess to hashem & tell him we get your wakeup call message etc… & FACE REALITY. if klal yisroel did this then it would bring us all to teshuva & Geula WITH MASHIACH
may it happen very soon
Joseph – you didn’t read my post clearly enough – I said “Unless you’re living in a patriarchal society” i.e. like a Muslim society. With the exception of Iran, how many Jews live in muslim countries anymore? Probably a few dozen in each (I remember over a decade ago hearing a news report there were only like 8 Jews left in Baghdad) I’m talking recognizable Jews – not halachik Jews living as muslims such as girls kidnapped and forced into muslim marriages or descendants of such cases. I could be mistaken – maybe there are kehilot in places like Tunisia or Morocco still but even in those cases is it even more than 100 people?
Anyway back to my original point – unless you are still in a country like that which virtually no Jews live since a generation ago, polygamous marriages just aren’t shyach.
Even in societies were it was acceptable and practiced among yiddin do you have proof that any such marriages were actually successful? The Gemara itself says that ideally a person shouldn’t marry more than one wife. If you want to be a smart alec that’s fine but if we’re being honest it’s an idea that would never work in real life and in 90 percent of cases lead to shalom bayit nightmares.
Joseph are you married? If so just ask Rebbetzin Joseph how she would feel if you took on another wife. Then come back to us and tell us how good an idea it is.
Morocco has sizable Jewish communities. Polygamy is also legal in South Africa (where even the President has multiple wives), which also has a very large number of frum Jews.
In any event, I wasn’t referring to what the local gentile countries we’re living in permits. You could have a halachic marriage without undergoing a secular marriage. In the United States of America tens of thousands of Mormon Fundamentalists and African Muslim immigrants have polygamous marriages from New York City through Utah, and have been doing so from over a century ago through today.
Obviously, all this is currently only applicable to non-Ashkenazim.
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