Twenty years ago Orthodox Jewish couples met, dated and married in much the same way as other Americans. But not anymore. The trend toward shidduchim, or arranged marriages, has taken hold even in modern Orthodox families. While the style offers wholesome counterbalances to the sexual freedom pervasive in our society — many Orthodox couples do not even touch until marriage — it is also bringing out social, religious and psychological undercurrents that are worrying rabbis and other community leaders.
Today’s shidduchim rarely involve a formal matchmaker. More often than not, families or friends arrange for a young man and woman to meet. But unlike other couples who date in a casual, informal way, these couples follow an unwritten but strictly observed set of rules. These include having the couple report back to the party who introduced them as to whether they liked each other well enough to continue dating. In addition, couples date only each other for the duration of their relationship and generally go out only a limited amount of time before deciding to become engaged or end the relationship. Most significantly, the two families involved often research each other informally but thoroughly, from their lineage to minute details about their religious behavior and personal life.
It is this aspect in particular that rabbis are speaking out against as improper and unhealthy, since the questions are not confined to the financial status of the other family and whether the mother covers her hair. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, a prominent Baltimore pulpit rabbi and psychologist, discussed this issue at a recent international Nefesh conference of Orthodox mental health professionals. He railed against what he called “the psychosis” of parents asking far-ranging personal questions about the religious practices, ritual observances and family traits of a potential mate for their son or daughter.
He and other rabbis say they are being asked what color tablecloth a family uses for its Shabbat table, whether the mother comes to the table in a dress or robe, what dress size the mother of the girl wears and the learning abilities of the potential mate’s siblings. It is not uncommon for families to mask medical or other problems so as not to devalue their child on the shidduch market.
Weinreb and others are highly critical of such behavior, calling on parents to use common sense and to focus instead on qualities such as kindness, compassion and warmth.
The dirty little secret behind the concerns about shidduchim are the high numbers of young Orthodox couples who are getting divorced after brief marriages. There are no hard statistics on this, but anecdotal evidence indicates that the percentage of broken engagements and divorces in the modern Orthodox world is growing.
Part of the problem is the pressure on young men and women to marry at an early age, well before 25, compounded by the fact that as the community has moved to the right religiously, there are fewer opportunities for the sexes to meet in a social or natural context.
Most of the Orthodox schools separate boys and girls at an early age. Religious youth groups are separated by gender as well, and dating is heavily discouraged by day schools and yeshivas until the individuals are seriously interested in seeking a marriage partner.
“How are these young people supposed to meet?” one rabbi complained privately, fearful of speaking publicly because of the stigma of appearing too liberal in advocating social programs for Orthodox young men and women.
Modern-day shidduch rules may be overly protective. The couples are encouraged to share their post-date evaluations with the third party who introduced them, rather than with each other, so young people are spared the pain of rejection. But they are also robbed of the personal life experience and the social and psychological growth that comes with establishing, and ending, relationships with members of the opposite sex.
In today’s Orthodox world, with its accelerated emphasis on marriage, there is little room for experimentation, or failure. Whereas other couples would be breaking up after, say, six months of dating, the Orthodox couple may already be married at that point and, as a result, their break-up is a divorce, with all its added consequences.
An underlying though rarely discussed issue here is that Orthodox couples marry young as a means of harnessing their libidos within the parameters of marriage, since physical contact is not permitted before then. But how many young couples confuse lust with love, and are eager to marry the first member of the opposite sex they are attracted to? Too often, when the initial bloom wears off, these couples find they do not have enough in common to make a life together and may regret that they rushed into marriage.
It should be emphasized that there are endless variations of the shidduch scene, and perhaps the majority of young Orthodox couples are finding compatibility, fulfillment and great happiness. But the issues raised here deserve attention and discussion because they are real, and too often ignored.
An Orthodox community so concerned about transmitting its traditions to the next generation and growing in numbers should find ways to allow its young men and women to meet and interact with each other in healthy, natural settings. That way they can come to know and appreciate each other as people before they must size each other up as potential marriage partners.