Age to Get married
Problem: Jews are not allowed to have premarital sex. Starting shortly after puberty, the teenager's hormones are raging. What does the Torah advise?
Solution: Most Orthodox Jews are familiar with the expression shemoneh esreh l'chupa - that you should get married when you are 18 years old. Most do not realise that this is neither the minimum age, nor the ideal age from a Torah perspective. They also do not realize that there is a halachic deadline.
Eighteen is the age given for marriage in Pirkei Avoth (the part of the Mishnah called Ethics of our Fathers). For many reasons, 18 is a very practical age - by then a man has had an opportunity to learn a large amount of Torah. He is expected to be mature enough to support a family. On the other hand, he has been urged on by his hormones for a few years already. The Talmud (Kiddushin 29b) says that from a perspective of guarding against sin, 16 is better and 14 is better yet. The Shulchan Aruch (Even HaEzer 1:3) says that the best way to perform the mitzvah of marriage is to get married at age 13.
The halachic deadline is age 20. If a man has not gotten married by age 20, the Talmud says that all of his days he will have sinful thoughts. My understanding of this is that since he did not get married at the time when his hormones were raging the strongest, and since he had no kosher outlet for his sexual drive, he has become permanently warped. A man who did not get married by age 20 is supposed to be beaten by the Beith Din (religious courts) until he agrees to get married. This is the halacha in Shulchan Aruch (Even HaEzer 1:3), though the Rama (Rav Moshe Isserles) says that the custom nowadays is not to force people to get married. In any case, if he hasn't gotten married by age 20, he should get married as soon as possible.
The sages of the Talmud understood the nature of man and his drives very well. They suggested that a man should get married at 18, and that for protection against improper sexual urges, younger would be better. They said that putting off marriage to later than 20 would permanently warp his personality.
Today in Jewish society, it is unusual for a man to get married as young as 18, and most don't even get married by 20, and it is almost unheard of for a man to get married younger than 18.
Clearly this is a cause to some of the problems of sexual morality facing Jewish society today.
Often when I present this simple concept to people, they argue that men are not mature enough to get married at age 14, or even at age 18. Certainly they are physically mature. The question is, are they emotionally mature. And are they mature at 24 or at 36.
Our grandparents or great grandparents got married at much younger ages than we do. The tendency in western society is to foster dependence until a late age, but this is a matter of conditioning and training. If we would expect our sons to be mature and would train them to be mature and would give them responsibilities, then indeed they could be mature enough to get married at the age that the Torah directs.
This would have many benefits: less sexual frustration and sexual immorality, more Jewish children born. It would also make it easier for girls/women to get married. Men generally marry women younger than they, and the greater the age when a man gets married, the greater the difference between his age and his wife's age. An older woman is therefore competing against women of a wider age span. Her competition is greater and her chance of getting married is less.
Solution: Most Orthodox Jews are familiar with the expression shemoneh esreh l'chupa - that you should get married when you are 18 years old. Most do not realise that this is neither the minimum age, nor the ideal age from a Torah perspective. They also do not realize that there is a halachic deadline.
Eighteen is the age given for marriage in Pirkei Avoth (the part of the Mishnah called Ethics of our Fathers). For many reasons, 18 is a very practical age - by then a man has had an opportunity to learn a large amount of Torah. He is expected to be mature enough to support a family. On the other hand, he has been urged on by his hormones for a few years already. The Talmud (Kiddushin 29b) says that from a perspective of guarding against sin, 16 is better and 14 is better yet. The Shulchan Aruch (Even HaEzer 1:3) says that the best way to perform the mitzvah of marriage is to get married at age 13.
The halachic deadline is age 20. If a man has not gotten married by age 20, the Talmud says that all of his days he will have sinful thoughts. My understanding of this is that since he did not get married at the time when his hormones were raging the strongest, and since he had no kosher outlet for his sexual drive, he has become permanently warped. A man who did not get married by age 20 is supposed to be beaten by the Beith Din (religious courts) until he agrees to get married. This is the halacha in Shulchan Aruch (Even HaEzer 1:3), though the Rama (Rav Moshe Isserles) says that the custom nowadays is not to force people to get married. In any case, if he hasn't gotten married by age 20, he should get married as soon as possible.
The sages of the Talmud understood the nature of man and his drives very well. They suggested that a man should get married at 18, and that for protection against improper sexual urges, younger would be better. They said that putting off marriage to later than 20 would permanently warp his personality.
Today in Jewish society, it is unusual for a man to get married as young as 18, and most don't even get married by 20, and it is almost unheard of for a man to get married younger than 18.
Clearly this is a cause to some of the problems of sexual morality facing Jewish society today.
Often when I present this simple concept to people, they argue that men are not mature enough to get married at age 14, or even at age 18. Certainly they are physically mature. The question is, are they emotionally mature. And are they mature at 24 or at 36.
Our grandparents or great grandparents got married at much younger ages than we do. The tendency in western society is to foster dependence until a late age, but this is a matter of conditioning and training. If we would expect our sons to be mature and would train them to be mature and would give them responsibilities, then indeed they could be mature enough to get married at the age that the Torah directs.
This would have many benefits: less sexual frustration and sexual immorality, more Jewish children born. It would also make it easier for girls/women to get married. Men generally marry women younger than they, and the greater the age when a man gets married, the greater the difference between his age and his wife's age. An older woman is therefore competing against women of a wider age span. Her competition is greater and her chance of getting married is less.
posted by emeslyaakov | 3:00 PM
1 Comments:
And how do you suppose in this economy today, that an 18-yr old with no college education (which is almost a requirement today) and no wealth (and his family is still raising other younger children so they can't support his new wife and him plus subsequent children) is supposed to provide for his newly married life? As a woman I can tell you that to do it all over again, I would not have married as young as I did, with the
trails and travails of a modern society that scorns you for marrying so young w/out these things in place. Not having a family to support such an endeavor makes it nearly impossible to say nothing of their ridicule or humiliation. Many Jewish families could probably afford to do this if they were to live more in the fashion of an extended family as people once did. However, there are others like our family who can't even afford to do that. Imagine a already large family living in a 4 bedroom house with small children and a young woman is supposed to *want* to marry this young man and live in his parents house w/no room and no privacy? You say it's warped, but you don't propose a solution.
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