The past few months have seen extensive discussion about the shidduch challenges facing our community, particularly the growing number of older single girls having difficulty finding their shidduch. Many go for long stretches without dates, and behind each situation is a real family experiencing difficulty.
There’s been much conversation about the age gap, and we’ve seen encouraging movement from roshei yeshivos and rabbanim to restructure when younger bochurim start shidduchim. However, there’s one angle that hasn’t been fully explored: What about encouraging boys – and their mothers – to be more open to dating girls who are older than them?
Obviously, you cannot dictate whom someone should marry. But perhaps as age flexibility becomes increasingly normalized, it could help address this challenge. The truth is, many boys have already done this – it’s simply a matter of making this more common.
What if we developed a campaign showcasing the viewpoints, perspectives, and experiences of couples where the wife is older than the husband? Having them share how their marriages have worked out could be powerful.
We could feature anonymous perspectives from these couples, plus examples from respected rabbinic figures where the wife is older. Combined with relevant Torah sources, this could form an awareness campaign that helps normalize age flexibility in shidduchim.
If you or someone you know is part of such a marriage, your story could help change perspectives. We’re collecting experiences from couples or relatives of couples in these situations.
https://form.jotform.com/
This anonymous form takes just a minute to complete. Your contribution could show our community that these marriages work beautifully and perhaps help open minds that could change lives.
Sincerely,
D.S.
The views expressed in this letter are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of YWN. Have an opinion you would like to share? Send it to us for review.
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9 Responses
I very much like the idea of normalizing atypical marriages which was the norm in our whole history. Older woman, children from previous marriage, orphans, etc. we should celebrate them and normalize them.
In the Chareidi world, there is great emphasis on married couples having as many children as possible. The more children, the better.
In any society that emphasizes having as many children as possible, an older girl is obviously the wrong choice.
If a girl is still single in her 30s or 40s, then you should know with 100% certainty that she has rejected MANY good men, and for trivial and superficial reasons:
[1] He was not tall enough.
[2] He was not good-looking enough.
[3] He did not have enough hair.
[4] He did not wear a sweater (I actually saw this!)
[5] She did not like his socks or shoes.
[6] He forgot to open the car-door for her.
[7] She did not like his car.
[8] She believed false rumors about him, false rumors that were spread by stupid wicked people who love attacking other people, even people who never harmed them.
[9] Her fake “friends” made negative remarks about him,
because they feared her getting married, and leaving them alone.
[10] In the early 1990s, people in the Secular World were saying that older women marrying younger men was the trend of the future, because several famous women married younger men.
Ten years later, 100% of those marriages had ended in divorce, with the younger men taking second-wives who were much younger than them.
None of them married an older woman, for their second marriages.
[11] He was not prestigious enough to impress her fake “friends”,
who slander her, and each other, at every possible opportunity.
[12] They spent many years pursuing men who were already in serious relationships, or even married with children!
Please, do not feel sorry for these older girls who rejected many dozens of good men, for trivial and superficial reasons.
They had their chances, and they rejected them for bad reasons.
How about we don’t? The age gap exists for a reason, it helps a proper dynamic in a family. It would be difficult for a woman to respect and follow a man who is younger and less mature than her; similarly it would be difficult for a man to love and want to care for a woman is similar to an older sister. If a couple naturally assembles where the man is younger than it can work, but creating societal pressure would create unhappy, divorcing couples.
While I think your heart is in the right place I think your not comprehensibly dealing with this topic. Some what misleading as well .
A good marriage and a bad marriage is relative. Even the couple themselves don’t know how they’re marriage rates compared to what it could be if the wife was younger. Shadchanim today are pushing this “new” philosophy of marrying a girl older than you and they claim that it’s working well because all they see is couples getting engaged. They have no idea how the marriage works out. The only person who can testify to the results of these marriages is a sholom bayis expert that has a lot of experience with marriages.
Rav shach and r shteinman both married girls 5 years older than them. This is an excellent idea. Maybe there should be a money promotion of sorts
Not sure why we’re still talking about the shidduch crisis. This past year the Rabbonim came up with an idea to fix the age gap thing by boys starting a year early and girls waiting a year as a way of balancing things out.
This idea was promptly and flatly turned down by the girls and their family’s. Basically they declared that they have no crisis.
So now after this we’re going to make a pitch to reward the girls with younger guys ?
Where does it end ?
It is insanity to think that a ben torah would reject a woman several years older then him out of hand because c’v it might mean they would have only would have 4-5 children rather than 7-8. While peru u’revu is the first mitzvah, there are 247 mitzvot aseh that follow and being with a woman that will be loving, supportive and allow you to build a a Bayis Ne’eman b’Yisrael and pursue those other 247 mitzvot should clearly take priority over a numbers game of how many children a woman might offer.b
Rav Shamshon Refael Hirsch married a woman who was three years older than he was, and famously said, “I have many goals and aspirations in life. I need a woman with a mature and responsible attitude that will help me fulfill those objectives. An older woman can do that.”
An advantage of an older girl for a bochur with aspirations to remain in learning long-term is that, besides for added maturity, older girls are often more financially stable and able to enable him to remain in kollel longer.