In a recent letter to a singles column, a young woman bemoaned the fact that she could not start dating until her two older sisters had gotten married. Her parents insisted that their daughters had to marry according to birth order. This young lady shared that her sisters were quiet and not outgoing, and likely would not easily find a man who would be interested in them. In the meantime, she was missing out on shidduch opportunities and would herself become an older single with less potential choices as the pool of eligible men would shrink with the passing of years.
If I had taken my blood pressure, I am sure it would have been in the danger zone. I was furious by what I perceive as the unfortunate short-sightedness and lack of flexibility of these parents. They seem to be clueless to the fact they are undermining their younger daughter’s potential happiness by preventing her from moving forward towards her own promising future.
According to their misguided logic, life must have a seder – a specific order – with the oldest getting married first, followed by younger siblings. However, their thinking is so illogical. No one knows how many years of life every individual is given. Using their flawed reasoning, oldest siblings should die first, followed by the younger ones. Isn’t that appropriate and fair?
However, life does not work that way. A younger sister might die at 50, while an older one will live to 80. In the meantime, because the younger sister had a delayed marriage because she had to wait for her older siblings, she might have only married at 33 and having passed away 17 years later, left behind dependent teenagers and younger children. Had she been allowed to date, leading to an earlier marriage, let’s say at 23, her children would be older and even married. In the meantime, the older siblings might enjoy 50 years of marriage and live to see great grandchildren.
And these well-meaning, but dim parents are preventing life-enhancing networking opportunities for their unmarried children by holding younger siblings back. Perhaps a younger one who had been allowed to marry acquired many new relatives and acquaintances who could suggest matches for the single siblings. Perhaps someone from her husband’s family or an aunt who lives in a different community; or her brother-in-law’s best friend’s older single brother could come up with viable suggestion.
This networking could also be useful in getting a better job, or upgrading a career. One never knows where a shaliach will come from.
There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. In our heimishe world, it can be said it takes a community to make a shidduch. The more people who are in your social orbit, the better.
It is also puzzling that parents who insist on birth order in terms of pursuing matrimony are influenced by a rasha, the unscrupulous Lavan, Yaakov’s father-in-law. He insisted Leah, the older daughter get married first, and after several years, it was Rachel’s turn. Why emulate Lavan of all people? And to my point, Rachel died years before Leah. Perhaps she would have been more fertile, or at the very least, not left behind very young sons.
There is no mention in the Torah of younger siblings having to hang around waiting for older siblings getting married. I wonder if the five daughters of Zelophehad – who had asked Moshe if they could inherit their father’s portion of land since he left no sons – married in birth order? Or did Yaakov’s sons? It doesn’t seem to have been a “thing” except to the conniving Lavan.
We all know families in our communities where an older sister is still single and over 40, but her younger siblings were allowed to date and get married. Had they been prevented from doing so, there would be several sisters in their mid to upper 30s, on the proverbial shelf, likely bitter that they weren’t allowed to move forward like their peers.
Why contribute to the shidduch crisis? In my eyes, these inflexible parents are no better than get-refusers who prevent marriages and new generations coming into being.
To be fair, I know that they may have their older children’s feelings in mind. It can be somewhat humiliating for an older single to participate in a younger sister’s wedding, and the parents want to prevent resentment and stress and agmas nefesh. But at some point, delaying dating for years can be likened to delaying treatment for an illness. It gets more difficult to resolve, especially, when older singles age.
And of course, get input from the older girl. Perhaps she’s fine being bypassed; or if she isn’t, give her a reasonable, agreed upon cut-off date.
A possible compromise would be the parents having a “deadline” for the unmarried daughter(s) to marry. If they reach 25, and are still single, then allow the younger daughter(s) to date.
Or once the younger child has reached 22, she should get a green light for dating.
What can be a lose-lose situation, can with flexibility, and perhaps family counseling can be mutually beneficial for all members of the family.
