CHAPTER FOUR - The Question of Marriage

A: BACKGROUND

8. The shadchan: rise, fall and reappearance

The reason for this change is not only the penetration of the idea of romantic love and the love match from the outside world.

There is another reason that can be suggested, related to an issue examined in the previous chapter: the question of extended adolescence and a later entrance into adulthood.
In the previous chapter, this was explored in relation to puberty and the idea of coming-of-age at the beginning of adolescence. Now, it arises in relation to the end of adolescence and the question of marriage: the famous text studied in relation to the traditional ages for particular stages of Jewish life related, among other things, to marriage. This was the next stage after the age of “Mitzvot”.

He used to say: At five years old one is fit for the Scripture, at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the fulfilling of the commandments, at fifteen for the Talmud, at eighteen for the marriage canopy…
Mishnah Pirkei Avot, 5:21

From the evidence here and elsewhere, it seems that - in the Talmudic age - the desired age for marriage was indeed around the age of eighteen. That remains the situation today.

In the nineteenth century, the standard Halachic work, the Kitzur Shulhan Aruch, (the shortened version of the classic Shulhan Aruch), for example, is the following formulation, supporting this position:

A man is duty bound to take for himself a wife, in order to fulfill the mitzvah of propagation. This mitzvah becomes obligatory on a man when he reaches the age of eighteen; at any rate he should not reach the age of twenty without taking a wife. Only in the event that he is engaged in the study of Torah with great diligence and he has apprehension that marriage might interfere with his studies he may delay marrying…
Solomon Ganzfried, Kitzur Shulhan Aruch, Vol. 4

This might have been the accepted Halachic position, but over the centuries, in more and more communities, we hear increasingly of the age of marriage being lowered, and parents who were marrying off their children at a very young age.

A number of reasons can be suggested for this tendency:

The underlying premise is connected with the issue of sexuality in Judaism.

• Judaism’s “official” position on sex is parallel, in many ways, to the attitude towards marriage. Just as the attitude towards marriage tends to be very positive (without any of the negativity or ambivalence exhibited by Christianity), so is the attitude towards sexuality. Sex is considered healthy and natural, something to be enjoyed - as long as sexual activity is within clearly defined boundaries.
• The major boundary concerns marriage: Judaism absolutely condemns sexual activity that is not within the framework of marriage, while - even within marriage - there are certain limitations: the whole field of family purity clearly limits sexual activity to certain times in the month, according to the wife’s menstrual cycle.
  But chief among the limitations is the condemnation of any sexual activity, with or without a partner, for the unmarried.
• It appears that another motive for early marriage was the feeling that eighteen was too old an age for some to start their sexual activity - a fear that to force youngsters to wait until eighteen might be an opening for all kinds of problematic sexual behaviour.
  We see such fears in many Jewish sources. For example, that same Ben Sira, whom we saw previously as a prime supporter of the married state, had this to say about unmarried daughters and female sexuality.

  Keep a close watch over a headstrong daughter,
  For if she is allowed her liberty, she may take advantage of it.
  Keep watch over a roving eye
  And do not be surprised if it offends against you.
  Like a thirsty traveler who opens his mouth
  And drinks of any water that is near,
  She will sit down before every tent peg,
  And open her quiver to the arrow.
  Ben Sira 26

• A further reason for the lowering of the acceptable marriage and betrothal age, even to the point of child marriage, was connected with the very difficult conditions that many communities encountered in the Middle Ages as a result of persecution and sometimes, plague.
These phenomena, which became very widespread throughout most of the Jewish world from the time of the Crusades onwards, had an impact of major proportions on the institution of marriage.

• Fear gripped many of the small communities that they were in danger of being wiped out;
• or, alternatively, that the supply of marriageable partners for their children was diminishing and these provided an impetus for earlier marriage.
• We hear of parents in those unstable days who were worried that riots might deplete the money for a dowry and therefore decided to marry their children while money was still available.

We hear clear evidence of this, for example, in the commentaries of the Tosafists who lived in the late Middle Ages in the regions of France and Germany, at a time of terrible persecutions for the Jewish communities of those lands.

A man is forbidden to marry off his daughter if she is a minor. [That is the law]…
Nevertheless, it is our custom to betroth our daughters, even if they are minors, because day after day the [oppression of] Galut [the Exile] increases - and if a man has the possibility of giving his daughter a dowry now, [he betrothes her,] lest he not have it later on and she will remain an [unmarried woman] forever.
Tosafot, Kiddushin 41a

It is interesting to note that some historians view the emergence of the figure of the shadchan (in its honourable stage, when the shadchanim were rabbis and other respected individuals) as a response to the crisis of Jewish communities in this period after the Crusades. Taking responsibility for the members of their distressed communities, among other tasks, they journeyed far and wide to seek out potential partners.

• Another important factor was the influence of the many messianic movements that affected the lives of so many Jews, especially in the later Middle Ages (around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries). There is a tradition that the Messiah will only come when all the Jewish souls that are intended for each other in marriage have already been partnered. This, too, played a part in bringing forward many marriages.

In parenthesis, it should be stressed that if marriage happened below the age of mitzvot - where parents married off their children before the age of twelve for a girl and thirteen for a boy - the parents themselves were legally responsible for the maintenance of the agreement between the parties.

In the most general terms, the question of the age of marriage was a major consideration in the historical Jewish experience, living life as a beleaguered minority, anxious about issues of survival and continuity.

• When marriage was contracted at an early age, the parents clearly became the major partners in deciding on the marriage of their children. In the modern world conditions have changed:

• Adolescence is protracted, and in much of the Jewish world the taboos surrounding sexual behaviour before marriage have fallen.
• Sexual activity prior to marriage is the norm in many circles, and more and more young people have lived together without legal commitment before or instead of marriage.
• Material conditions have also changed, allowing young men and women to move out of home and start a life for themselves, independent of their parents and without the need for parents, or parents-in-law, as an economic base.

• All these factors have intertwined with an ideological commitment to the concept of personal romance.
This ideology - and it could be understood as an ideology - states that:

• the individual must find their own partner,
• that love is a pre-requisite for marriage
• and that only the individual in question can decide whether or not the love that they have found is sufficient to consider marriage.

Mottel and Tzeitel, in the Tevye story, lived at the beginning of this ideological revolution. We now live in the middle of it.

• However, there is an interesting and contrasting development over the last two decades: arranged dating has started to reappear with a vengeance in many different Jewish communities in the western world.
This does not represent a re-emergence of the traditional society, rather, it remains at the heart of the modern world, where romantic love is never questioned as an ideal. It has become clear over the last generation that there is often a need for some kind of intervening agency to facilitate the meeting of young men and women. The need for such agencies is general - and many dating, or marriage brokering services have sprung up on a commercial basis in the outside world.

• However, it appears that there is a specifically Jewish aspect to the problem of meeting young people of the opposite sex.
Many articles have been written over recent years lamenting, especially, the perceived dearth of available Jewish men. This is not the place to go into the reasons or even to examine whether or not the perception is accurate.

• However, it is clear that there are a lot of Jewish singles out there who, for one reason or another, are not making contact. As a result, a number of years ago, a few Jewish communities, aware of the problem, began to respond with their own dating services. This service has now spread to many communities, where professional Jewish agencies have attempted to step into the breach and help young Jews find each other.
• Increasingly, it seems, there is less of a stigma associated with turning to intermediary agencies to help find a partner. Many have recognised that the need to rely on your own individual resources to find the right partner, is simply too hard or too exhausting. Leo Finkel would have an easier time of it these days.