Is Any Marriage Better Than No Marriage? by Deborah Mark
It's no accident that many of the do's and don'ts of dating today would seem more familiar to a couple's great-grandparents than to their own parents. Serendipity is out. Shadchans and speed dating are in.One of the payoffs of traditions and rules is supposed to be a sense of certainty and security. But even as they date and decide, many young people are nagging themselves with doubts: Is any marriage better than no marriage? Should I settle?
Old world methods - encouraging marriages based on external notions of compatibility - 'worked' for Tevye, Golde, and thousands like them. They didn't look for fireworks; love and affection would come with time. It often did. How have we changed?
For centuries, roles for wives and husbands were clearly delineated. Women didn't travel to learn Torah and to acquire their own hashkafa. Men weren't disqualified by their lack of ambition or physical bearing; women weren't expected to look like a sylph after several pregnancies. Material consumption was not the byword of Jewish life. Status was achievable through various means, not just through wealth. Getting by was acceptable, inevitable.
There were also discreet outlets. People worked six days a week. Men often left home for weeks at a time to earn a living or to learn at a distant yeshiva. Men sometimes left women for years in order to start a life elsewhere before sending for the family. Women often received emotional sustenance from each other.
Many of the modern pressures and expectations were unthinkable one hundred years ago. Today's marriages demand more emotional intimacy, negotiation, conversation and stimulation than was ever expected between the traditional husband and wife.
American Orthodox life also evolved. It now presents itself as a lifestyle of having it all and having it all sooner: the best education and careers, optimum looks, gourmet kosher restaurants, opportunities for learning, annual vacations, multiple trips to Israel, yeshiva educations and camps for children, a beautiful, spacious home, nice cars, a variety of stylish clothes and accessories, a lavish bris, wedding and bar and batmitzvahs. And have the ability, of course, to be ba'alei tzedakah (philanthropic).
In this context, it's no wonder that people are placing a market value on themselves and on potential spouses. Should you settle? The questions reflect alternating fears that the best opportunity may have passed you by, or, the fear that you could do better. There is a lurking sense of entitlement on the one hand, and a fear of being judged on the other. The capitalistic model has permeated our consciousness. It's like real estate: how high is high? Or, in the stock market, when do you know to cash in? Will tomorrow bring a better offer?
It's long been a custom at the Stern College dormitory that whenever a resident is engaged to marry, her friends decorate the door to her suite with rings and symbols of the chatan's (groom's) profession. By the end of the term, walking through those halls, there is the inescapable suggestion of mezuzot and mashkof al ha-batim (the marking of the doorposts before the exodus from Egypt), indicating who is protected and who is not.
It's understandable too, if young people are eager to be engaged. Being engaged is a public, affirming, communal experience. You are celebrated, feted and blessed by all. From that time forward, a significant amount of time, money and attention is spent on the details of the wedding itself. The anticipation of being the center of attention at the party of a lifetime can be seductive in itself. You are relieved of the uncertainties and loneliness of single life. That and the positive reinforcement of family and friends make it easy to gloss over potential problems in the relationship.
Yet, after the last sheva brachos, you're on your own. Marriage, by contrast is a most private experience. In fact, it's easy to get the impression that all the unhappiness resides with those who are single, that perhaps any marriage is preferable to being alone, for it is the problems of singles that are most openly discussed.
It is natural, too, for young people on the verge of marriage to imagine the fulfillment of hopes and dreams rather than anticipate the complexities that accumulate with living a long life. A partner's vulnerability is probably not high on anyone's dating checklist.
What message is conveyed about dating and marriage when more families are altering their lives based on what they hope will lead to 'proper' future shidduchim for their children? When the fear of 'ruining' a future shidduch translates into years of avoiding the perception of deviance or veering from the norm? With this trend, categories of 'deviance' and 'defect' have broadened. Is it in our interest as a community to cultivate a lack of authenticity, less acceptance of vulnerability or limited respect for differences of opinion and experience? The paradox is that, as one married woman wrote, "One of the things that keeps us from intimacy... is that we're afraid people will see our stuff. And yet it's so much better when we can be in it together, when we can be honest. It opens doors to redemption and to letting light shine in on some dark places."
This same woman, someone who knowingly married a man who had a life-threatening illness, offers another perspective: "You're not choosing a particular future when you decide to get married; you're choosing a partner for whatever the future brings. And you're choosing to look upon a potential marriage partner as the person that, no matter what happens, I want to do this together with you... You're always going to be hit by curve balls and even the things that you expect are always going to be more challenging when they arrive than what you had imagined."
It is precisely because marriage is a central value and the basis for family and Jewish continuity, that we each have a stake in making it more likely for others to get it right. We can make room for multiple opportunities for young people to get to know and be comfortable with one another. The human costs for the mistakes are incalculable. As is, divorce rates are up, there are agunot (women without a get) among us and domestic violence in the Orthodox community is estimated at rates of 15-20%, equal to the population at large.
It would help if, instead of adding to the pressure, people and institutions make single people feel welcome enough so they can proceed at their own pace, in as many ways as can be made available to them, to meet someone. It would help also to reinforce what married people know - that in the end, being the last person in your crowd to marry will have no bearing on the quality of your married life, if you end up with the one who is right for you.
Perhaps it was a response to the anarchy of today's secular mores, but along the way, have our young people lost some of the viable alternatives for dating and marriage that worked for so many for so long? They and the modern Orthodox community should not settle for less.
Deborah Mark, an attorney, is a freelance writer and co-editor of Two Jews, Three Opinions: A Collection of Twentieth-Century Jewish Quotations (Perigee 2000).
Click here to leave a comment
