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The theory-du jour to explain the shidduch crisis is that guys start dating too late and if they would start to date earlier many issues can be avoided.
There is also a theory that the unfortunate increase in early divorces is because people are getting married when they are young and immature.
Obviously both these issues are a lot more complex and involved but anyone else see a potential problem here?
Yes. The problem is people are too quick to divorce instead of working through their problems.
While some people are immature when they get married, they will eventually grow up. The problem is, when the other spouse, also immature still, can’t wait a bit. It should take between 12-20 months for the average person to mature.
There are people who will never mature either. They will be 70 year old babies, the older they get the more hopeless the situation becomes. Those are a different story altogether. And they’re definitely not as common and is a whole separate discussion.
And yes, some people are mature enough when they get married but that’s not the discussion here.
I don’t think that we in the CR can do much about it. Bigger and stronger people tried.
There is one aspect of all of these theories that nobody has brought up yet as far as I can see.
The way the system is setup now, our daughters are being well educated in their yeshivas because its a good possibility that they will be the breadwinner of their own families.
The boys education, at least in the very frum community I live in is dismal to say the least.
The problem then becomes that my daughters have trouble dealing with the boys their own age (or younger) because they are so poorly educated.
My daughter dates boys close to her age and just comes home rolling her eyes…The younger boys, who have very little life exprerience, are so immature!
If we want our boys out in the dating world sooner, then they need to be prepared!They need to be educated better then they are now. Even if they are going to sit and learn forever, They have to know how to balance a checkbook or how to carry on a normal conversation complete with proper grammer.
The well educated girls should be able to respect their life partners and not feel educationally and worldly superior. That alone is a recipe for disaster.
Give the boys a little real life education and experience and then push them to date younger.
Momofsix
Explain to me where a serious boy who learns most of his day and takes his Yiddishkiet seriously is going to develop all these life skills and worldliness that you speak of. He isnt online, isnt wasting his time reading non Jewish books, isn’t watching movies, maybe reads a frum newspaper occasionally, doesnt go places he shouldnt and doesnt associate with people who arent serious learners. So I will ask you, where would you expect him to get this worldliness? Yes there are many boys with worldliness but they didnt get it in the beis medrash. Or maybe they did by shmoozing with their chavrusas instead of learning…
rabbi_dr:
“I’ve always assumed that guys should start dating when they feel ready and mature. By ‘suggesting’ to them to start dating earlier, we run the risk of people starting before they are mature enough.”
Marriage requires a lot of adjusting. Adjusting that is impossible to do before marriage for obvious reasons. This period of adjustment is very often mistaken as immaturity by some folks. And requires a lot of patience…
Theories are just that until put into practice. I have yet to hear of a single yeshiva that encourages its bachurim to adopt this new fangled idea. I have sons that are in beis medrash and not a single rebbe has advised any of my sons to do anything remotely suggesting getting married at 22 or 23.
Your girls who come home rolling their eyes are unrealistic snobs. They either need to
1. Come to terms with the fact that those type of boys will not be able to match wits with them
2. Go out with a different type of boy who can match wits with them.
If they are looking down on the boys then they are not machshiv the sacrifice of worldliness for torah, and have no business marrying a learner. So I vote option 2. I hear YCT grads are worldly and mature.
I agree with Squeak.
I agree with MomOfSix and disagree with squeak and Torah613Torah. Young men, also, should be articulate and have some basic idea of what’s doing in the world even though they are learning. This can be easily done without losing their focus in learning.
How many prominent Roshei Yeshiva do NOT read (or at least glance through) either a Jewish newspaper like Yated/HaModia or, perhaps, the secular NY Times or Wall Street Journal?
Both men and women should know how to manage a checkbook and how to generally navigate society. This is simple derech eretz, which, according to Chazal, is kadma laTorah.
And for the men who are going into rabbanus, it is almost a chilul Hashem if they don’t know how to speak the language properly.
They have to know how to . . . carry on a normal conversation complete with proper grammer.
And for the men who are going into rabbanus, it is almost a chilul Hashem if they don’t know how to speak the language properly.
Hear, hear!
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