The Shidduch (Matchmaking) Crisis

From Hirhurim:

  • A survey of university presidents’ salaries: link
  • Religious Zionists rabbis want kosher cellphone internet: link
  • The new shidduch crisis: link
  • An article on a few J-blogs: link
  • NY Post reports on proposed solution to the Shidduch Crisis: link
  • Rav Soloveitchik on Lekh Lekha: link

Poster posts: Regarding the shidduch crisis in the Post. I didn’t see all the signatures on the "edict", but I would assume that they were primarily from the Yeshivish and Chassidish worlds, and their words were meant for their groups. I’m not sure what is gained by quoting people not from these groups who have a different mind-set as to what age to marry.

TVT writes: The post headline takes the issue completely out of context.

Those who promote this solution to the shidduch "crisis" are not claiming that some unnatural proclivity for marrying much younger women has developed in the yeshivish community (as implied) by the play on "cradle robbers".

Rather they are attempting to pin the blame of the perceived crisis on a trend that been around forever and crosses all ethnic groups. That is the common 2-5 years of age by which grooms are typically older than their brides.

With the help of some clever but oversimplified statitstical analsysis the "age-gappers" would have you believe that the difference in size between a cohort of dating young men and the girls they typically date is not only the reason why more girls end up single at older ages, but also explains why so mnay girls in the frum community sit around fro weeks and months at at time just waiting for a date.

It can explain the former.

It doesn’t explain the latter.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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