Marriage: An introduction

Over at South Jerusalem, Haim Watzman is worried about the current status of marriage in the Modern Orthodox community: “My son graduated high school, then studied at a yeshiva for a year and a half, and is now performing military service in a unit that will require him to serve at least one year beyond the already long mandatory term of three years. Add the de rigueur year of travel after the army, and he won’t even begin college until he’s 25. If he goes for an advanced degree, he may not reach the real world until he’s well into his thirties.” 

By ‘real world’, it seems fair to assume he means marriage. “It would be absurd to pretend,” he continues, “that the expectation that our sons and daughters will pursue high-level religious and secular studies, as well as serve extended terms of military or national service, doesn’t clash with the family values we also espouse as religious Jews.” Young religious men and women are now spending extended periods as singles, “a phenomenon almost unheard of previously in the religious community.”

Watzman concludes that these social changes need to be acknowledged. “Rather than pretending that we can have it all, we need to make choices.” Amen to that. But I fear that the assumptions of the Modern Orthodox community are not going to be particularly helpful for those who – for whatever reason – decide not to marry. With marriage seen as a sacred duty, those who feel it’s not for them risk being shunned and/or derided. The reverse is true in the secular world. In the west, fewer and fewer people are marrying at all. Marriage is seen as an outdated institution with no relevance in the post-modern era. Where does this leave secular people who do decide to get married?

Arguments surrounding marriage are dominated by false dichotomies. Choosing how to conduct your romantic life is not an ideological either/or. What’s important is being able to make informed, autonomous decisions. Dogmatic assertions for or against marriage are of no use to anybody. Here at false dichotomies I will be looking closely at the issue of marriage over the coming weeks and months. Marriage is a useful lens through which to assess how the status of our relationships might develop over the coming years. As such, it is a topic that needs to be dealt with in the utmost seriousness.