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Single Orthodox Men: A Guide to the Perplexed by Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, Ph.D

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Alan, a twenty-eight year old Orthodox man from the Upper West Side tells me that he wants very much to have a family, but "somehow", the three serious relationships he has had didn't end in marriage. Could this have something to do with him? Alan's story is typical of many twenty-something Orthodox men who are not finding it easy to commit themselves to marriage.

A significant source of the problems of single Orthodox men is the trouble they have coming to terms with the cultural changes produced by the success of American feminism. In the world of modern Orthodoxy, the influence of American feminism has primarily played itself out in two areas. First, for some Orthodox men, the increasing demand by Orthodox women for a redistribution of power in intimate attachments and family life has raised complex control issues and reduced their expectation of safety in marriage. Second, as changing gender roles in the wider American society have changed Jewish family culture, some Orthodox men have experienced confusion about their masculine identity and sense of self worth. I will consider each of these areas in turn.

EZER K'NEGDO:
Fear, Danger & Insecurity
Insecurity about the unpredictability of marriage relationships is not new. If people arranged marriages, says the Yalkut Shimoni [794] there would be widespread marital violence. Hence, Hashem does the matchmaking before birth- for first marriages at least. Rashi's comment on the phrase ezer k'negdo [Bereishit 2:18] - " If the man merits, she will be a helper; if he does not merit, she will be against him." - is hardly reassuring. After all, who can rely on his own merit? There is nothing new in a man fearing that he will end up with a wife who berates or humiliates him.

As modern Orthodox women have become increasingly socially and economically successful and independent, it has become harder for some men to feel secure in their own ability to stand up for themselves in a marriage. On the one hand, these men want, indeed can only really respect, women who are competent enough to take the initiative in building a strong family life. On the other hand, they fear "falling under the control" of any woman they perceive as personally powerful enough to actually succeed in playing this role within the family. Without even realizing it, they test for a "safe" marriage by undermining the power of prospective female marriage partners. If they fail to gain control in this way, they leave the relationship. If they persist in trying, the woman leaves.

In addition, yeshiva education does not seem to have helped Orthodox men deal with their fascination with and fear of female sexuality. On the one hand, many Orthodox men want and actively search for satisfying sexual experiences with women. On the other hand, they need to control the expression of sexuality in women in order to avoid experiencing the fear that they cannot appropriately control their own sexual impulses. For many men, their anxiety about lack of sexual self-control leads to a fear that women will use their sexuality to control or abuse them. As one man put it to me, "any woman with enough sexual power to rock my world might also wreck it." We can see why such a fear makes it hard to commit to marriage.

AL KEN YA'AZOV ISH:
Boys Becoming Men?
Leaving ones family of origin and creating a new family of ones own requires the transfer or expansion of intimate attachments formed in childhood. While all of us enter marriage with "baggage" from our childhood family, most men enter with "patriarchal baggage". In its most stereotypical form, this baggage makes it seem "natural" to them that men are the head of the family, make the money and make the important decisions and that women are expected to cook, clean and take care of the children. The more stereotypically patriarchal the baggage, the harder it is to cope with the shifts in gender roles that have been occurring in American society. This problem is only exacerbated for Orthodox men who have been taught socially conservative interpretations of Torah as if they were timeless truths.

Orthodox men, as most American men, are not entirely sure how to be a man. This insecurity puts a contemporary modern Orthodox woman in a difficult situation. Some men leave relationships just to avoid facing the difficult reality that ultimately their sense of their own masculinity can never be entirely validated by their mate, but must largely come from within themselves.

MA'ALIN BA'KODESH:
Holy Step by Holy Step
In my experience, Orthodox dating with its negotiated personal attachments- think shidduchim, "job descriptions", "deal breakers", telescoped dating time tables and nearly irresolvable questions of sexuality, control and guilt - only aggravates matters. Although both parties arrive as autonomous individuals, it is primarily the woman who is expected to surrender her fully independent status once the deal is made. In fact, for some men, no deal can really erase the fear that his presently autonomous female negotiating partner will in fact retain- or worse give up now but later rediscover- the independence she showed during the negotiating process.

Of course, Orthodox dating could allow intimate attachments to develop gradually. Relationships would begin with interest and attraction and, as increasing friendship blends with romantic attraction, move on to a yet deeper level of caring that would make it possible to take the personal risks that are part of a commitment to a lifetime of intimacy. I think that the cultural changes I have discussed would be more comfortably handled if, rather than negotiating their marriages, Orthodox men and women let their personal commitments gradually grow out of their intensifying feelings for each other. Maybe, the experience of genuine trust in a relationship can provide the sense of safety that contracts cannot.

Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard is the director of organizational development at the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. He holds Ph.D.'s in philosophy and clinical psychology.