CHAPTER FOUR - The Question of Marriage

A: BACKGROUND

3. Marriage – The natural thing to do

It should be clearly noted that the Jewish ideology of marriage emphasises two separate ideas:

• One is that of procreation. Indeed, the bringing forth of children is seen as the first commandment that appears in the Torah.
• But procreation alone is not the only motive for marriage. Marriage has a much deeper root, something that can only be defined in terms of the psychological and emotional existence of the individual. The situation of the single person is, by definition, not desirable: there is something lacking in the experience and the existence of the single person, because there is a quality of human life that can only be experienced by someone in a human relationship with someone of the opposite sex. Without this human relationship, a person lacks a certain completeness.

The very word for a single person in Hebrew is a ????/? [ravak or ravakah], a word which comes from the root ??? [raik], meaning empty. Such a concept might be considered highly problematic in terms of today’s western values system, and we will examine the implications of this approach within the contemporary Jewish world at a later point in the chapter.
First, we shall explore the implications for the Jewish idea of marriage:

• In essence, Judaism views marriage as a natural state of being for a person once they have reached the suitable age. It will encourage young people to marry and to build a home; any other existence will be considered unnatural and undesirable.
  In this context, it should be recalled that both at birth and often at adolescence (in the bar or bat mitzvah ceremony) the brachah [blessing] will be made that wishes the individual a life of Torah, Chuppah [the wedding canopy, i.e. marriage] and good deeds, which are considered the three essential qualities to define a successful life. The implication is that the definition of an ideal life in Judaism is one that includes all three of these elements.
• One more sign that Judaism sees marriage as a natural state is found in another of the formative pieces in which the Torah relates to the creation of man and of woman.

And the Lord G-d made the rib, which He had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her unto the man. The man said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and they will- become one flesh.
Bereishit 2:22-24

Here, the idea of marriage is brought as a natural part of each person’s path in life. A person starts off as part of the family unit that is formed by his parents but moves, in time, into her or his own family unit to continue the human cycle.