Marrying Out

Let's take as a given for now that there are more boys then girls born in any given year on average. As Chaim Tropper has pointed out in discussing the "10%" difference this would not be a real problem for shidduchim if people were marrying other people their own age. Well it would be a little, because there would be an excess of boys left without partners. However, according to his formulations, if we hold to a three year age difference the excess moves to the female column. Either way we hold either males or females, if they want to get married, will have to look outside of the yeshivish world for partners.

Here lies an interesting problem, one that the solution of "marrying out" does not address. When should those people look outside of the yeshivish community? Yes, when? Let's look at the possibilities.

Possibility #1: People should be flexible as to where they look for shidduchim right from their first date. Yeshivish boys and girls should not tell a shadchan or their friends and family that they will only date someone from the yeshivish world. They should be looking at possible shidduchim from all the "surrounding" types of frumkeit. Since we cannot know with certainty whether the age range will be from 3 months to 3 years or more, both boys and girls need to be looking "outside of the box." This is flexibility on the part of both boys and girls.

Problem #1: We know from what Chaim has written that among the chassidim there is an excess of boys. If yeshivish boys are also red shidduchim to chasidishe girls who don't mind marrying yeshivish we are going to be causing a further imbalance in the chassidishe world. The same could happen if a larger than expected group of yeshivish girls marries into the chassidishe world. Suddenly there would be a problem for chassidishe girls in finding boys.

Problem #2: While we have some of the numbers for the yeshivish and chassidishe cohorts, we haven't seen the numbers for the groups that loosely are called "Modern Orthodox." There are members of these groups who would make suitable shidduchim for yeshivish boys and girls. What happens to the numbers in those groups if yeshivish boys and girls start marrying into those groups? Will an imbalance occur in those groups?

Possibility #2: Either yeshivish boys or yeshivish girls but not both should be looking for shidduchim outside of the yeshivish world right from the beginning. Again, depending on the age differences, this either would result in everyone getting married or it would not. And again, it could cause an imbalance in the numbers of boys and girls available in the groups into which these yeshivish boys and girls married.

Possibility #3: Only yeshivish girls should be looking for shidduchim both in and outside of the yeshivish world from the beginning. The problem with this is that there is no way, none, to control how many yeshivish girls "marry out." If there are, for arguments sake, 40 girls in one age group who would not be able to find shidduchim in the yeshivish world, how are we to decide which 40 girls have to marry out? There is no way to do this. So all yeshivish girls or a large part of them would be looking both in and out of the yeshivish world. What happens if 100 yeshivish girls find shidduchim in the "outside" groups? Suddenly there would be 60 yeshivish boys with no one to marry. They would need to then look outside or look to much younger girls in their own world, and the imbalance would be perpetuated yet again.

Possibility #4: Yeshivish boys and girls would be limited to looking for shidduchim only among themselves until a "suitable" amount of time has passed; after that, they must begin looking outside of the yeshivish world. So, what is a suitable amount of time? Two years? Three years? Four years? It would seem that if we follow this possibility we are actually talking about "older singles" and we are making that a younger and younger designation. If you didn't "win your race" right out of the starting gate we are going to move you to another "stable." Charming isn't it? And if the numbers hold true, it is going to be more girls then boys who are going to be marrying out.

Possibility #5: "Marrying out" needs to also be a geographic move. Those from the New York area who have limited themselves to shidduchim from the same area will need to look further afield, not only in the US, but all over the rest of the world.

Mr. Tropper designated some possible groups to "marry out" into. He called them "Israeli," "European," "Young Israel," "Modern Orthodox," and "Baal Teshuva." The first rule in division and classification is that a member of one class cannot also be a member of another class: something cannot be both black and white, it must be either black or white. The groups he named are not religious groups and are not analogous with "yeshivish." The first two are geographic locations, and within those locations are the full range of religious groupings. The Young Israel movement also has within it many who self-select as yeshivish but who have strong feelings about the State of Israel. "Modern Orthodoxy" is not one thing but many. "Modern Orthodox Machmir" shares many qualities with the yeshivish world, sometimes all. Baal Teshuva says nothing about the actual religious affiliation of the people who are designated as such. Many of those who are baalei teshuva are already in the yeshivish system and count among the original numbers.

The idea of "marrying out" is a good one if by that you mean that everyone should be flexible when looking for a shidduch right from the beginning. It's a good idea if it means that the sometimes artificial borders between religious groups are opened wide. It's a good idea if we look at out of town as just another place to find a shidduch. It's a good idea if it means that "frumkeit" takes precedence over group affiliation.

This kind of widespread acceptance is not what the yeshivish world is really looking for when it suggests marrying out. Organisms have built-in survival mechanisms. No matter what else happens they will battle to stay alive and grow stronger. If an individual member or two of that group have to be sacrificed to keep the group healthy, so be it. I have my doubts that the yeshivish world would accept all the possibilities I outlined above. I would state with certainty that what they are really looking at is possibility #4. If, after we have tried to get everyone in our group married off there are still some "left over numbers," then and only then should they look outside of our group. Am I alone in considering this offensive?

Everyone who wants to get married should have the opportunity to do so. In order for this to happen, flexibility has to be built in right from the beginning of the dating process. I think that "dating out" and "marrying out" is an idea of merit, but it will only work if it applies to everyone without prejudice. Otherwise, we would need to establish a "lottery" system--all high school graduates get a ticket and the "losing tickets" have to marry out? Or perhaps the leaders of the yeshivish world would show the way, and straighten out the numbers without us, by marrying their daughters off outside of the yeshivish world? You know, to show us how it is done? What's that old saying about "when hell freezes over"?