Love, lust and God
The Shaigetz has an interesting post and comment thread on dating and the Shiddach system. Now, I don't live in the same world that he does, and even my friends who date through Shadchanim (and I can count them on my fingers), date in a more relaxed way, so far as I can tell. That being said, I still don't think that the dichotomy between being "set up" and "marrying for love" is a real one. The Shaigetz himself seems to get this, but some of his commenators miss the point entirely, so I thought I'd mention it. Another point that his commentators miss, I think, is that if kids want to fool around, then they will. If they are being set up and chaperoned, then they will just fool around with kids who they aren't being set up with, when they aren't chaperoned. And if they don't want to, or are able to resist the temptation, then they don't really require the chaperoning. I suppose for the middle group, who given easy opportunities would, but won't go out of their way, the system is actually useful. Is that a large percentage? I don't know. Any thoughts?
3 Comments:
I think that both systems have advantages and disadvantages. However, in the end it all comes down to the same thing. The person that you marry is never the same thirty or forty years down the road. Neither are you for that matter. Therefore, marriage itself is a risk and either way you go about it the same risk remains.
thanks for the haskomo (-:
In fact in all honesty I thonk one has to admit that for most insiders it really does work. As you say the middle of roaders are those that benefit most and they are the vast majority. Ideally there would be an opt out system for those who are simply not designed to live in such a closed society butthen again an open door would make it easier for those middlings to leave too...
Wow, Shaigetz, thanks for taking the time to respond to me. If, as you say, most people are of the middleing sort, then there is no real reason to open up the system. It has certainly worked for countless people. The fact is, there are always people who have rebelious urges, and some of them will leave. Others will experiment without ever taking the big leap. The problem is that if you don't want to lose these middle people then you can't expose them to temptation. If you think that an open society has inherent value, then you have to risk losing some of those people. And varying degrees of openess will give varying results. There is no real escaping that.
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