Q: Should a man continue to court a woman for shidduchim if he thinks that she may make a good wife only that she’s not physically or emotionally attractive?
A: Let me explain something to you about this business. To choose a wife it’s good to take along your mother. Your mother is not emotionally attracted to any woman. And if you have a smart grandmother, it’s even better. She’s old and experienced.
Of course, no girl will allow you to bring your grandmother when you’re taking her out. But it’s important that the women in the family should be the judges of character and capability.
But you are the worst possible judge. Because a male is immediately blinded by a curl or by perfume. The most superficial things make him incapable of being a judge.
Now when a man says that in every respect a girl is suitable, only he doesn’t have enough emotional response, the question is, is she repulsive? If she’s not repulsive then you have to ask one more question. It may be that by intuition you know that something is wrong with her. Many times you cannot put it in words, but by intuition you see that this woman is not healthy, or you see that she is mentally not sound. You can’t put it in exact definition, but you can sense it sometimes.
But suppose you’re convinced, you have every reason to say that physically and mentally she is perfect or as close to perfect as you deserve to get – after all, not always do you deserve it. Because who are you? Sometimes you yourself are very imperfect – therefore you go ahead and make the shidduch on the basis of logic and not on the basis of emotion.
Of course, if you don’t like the person, you shouldn’t even try. But liking, if there is even a possibility, is going to increase with marriage. And therefore the fact that you are not emotionally attracted is meaningless in the choice of a shidduch.
Interesting. I advise my children to continue to date if they feel everything about the shidduch is good except they aren’t sure about attraction. Eventually, if after a while the attraction doesn’t come, you gotta end it. But each family/kehilla has a different approach to this.
Rav Matisyahu Solomon told me otherwise. Please ask your Moreh Derech.
There will be many responses I am sure.
Mothers in Rabbi Miller’s time differ than mothers these last ten years, at the minimum.
We can call the gridlock in shidduchim crisis or other. We can send boys off earlier and ask girls to wait a year post seminary, and feel good about addressing an existential problem. However, the advent of THE PICTURE which decides destiny should have been disallowed by Rabbonim and CERTAINLY PARENTS. Preparing boys for marriage and reasonable expectations of their role and their wives, belongs in the domain of Rabbanim and Mom/Dad. All these areas are leaking – and the shidduch pipeline is suffering. The girls need to be told that while they were more exposed to the workings of home, a dollar, and responsibility- they will have to be patient, when their learning husbands catch up. FINALLY, not every good boy is a long-term learner and when there is that TRUTH, everyone can be who they are and see if they relate and like one another. The young man might end up adding time to learning if not pressurized. The young woman will still feel like a Bas Melech even if she feels she wishes to be home more and not work and run the home for years. She can’t be Barbie as she runs the home and raises children. He doesn’t need to be Ken. Who says Barbie and Ken are even happy? More reality injected will higher shidduchim made and Shalom Bayis realized.
That’s why in his times there was no shidduch “crises’ full stop
Ask someone who knows this generation, a prominent Lakewood Rav that deals with shalom bayis issues all day, told me that this generation is very weak and isn’t willing to tolerate discomfort like previous generations, and that needs to be considered.
In the olden days people married for a purpose and that purpose was to build a Torah family and to raise good ehrliche children. It was the fathers responsibility to bring in the parnassah and the mothers responsibility to run the household.
Today the sad reality is more about how rich the family is how long the boy will get support and what size the girl is and above all to see a picture of the girl posing in 30 different poses
The divorce rate back then was miniscule compared to today so I ask which mehalech is better?
Pre Martial Therapy in today’s times should be a Requirement
How does/would a marriage have a chance of surviving w/out physical attraction?
Men shouldn’t look at women anyway so he doesn’t even know what is in the gus anyway. Attraction is made by Hollywood nowadays