As I’ve picked up a few more magazines than usual in the past several months, I couldn’t help but notice certain determined little advertisements denouncing the people who are “causing the shidduch crisis” (boys who start dating after age 21…) Honestly, I was intrigued when I saw a website listed and everything so I had to check it out.
I found a thorough description of the oft-cited age gap theory, along with the requisite graph. I will be perfectly honest — for a moment, some intense fear was triggered in me (more on this reaction next week), but then the flaws in the reasoning became so obvious.
1) Over and over and over again, the website states that because single boys start shidduchim at age 23, and single girls at age 19, the result is that the “difference” in girls versus boys has no one left to marry. I cannot say this enough times: people start shidduchim at different ages. I know girls who got married at barely-18, girls who started dating at 23, guys who got married at 20, guys who started dating at 25. And they didn’t necessarily marry people who were exactly 4 years older/younger than them, either — at all. Even if there is a “typical” age to begin shidduchim, all it takes is a percentage of people who do not conform to these ages to throw off the numbers. And that’s just for starters.
2) Even if the age gap was a real thing, and most girls got married at 19 to 23-year-old guys, and even if that meant there were 19-year-old girls left without 23-year-old guys, that would mean (according to The Serious Graph) that 20% of each graduating Bais Yaakov class would…find other shidduchim, like someone from a different country, or a different background, or who had been previously married, or someone who is not 23-years-old. So in a class of 50 girls (oh, I cannot believe I’m even engaging with this, but sure), ten girls would not marry guys from The Serious Graph. They’d marry other guys. And then everyone is married. The end.
3) A major flaw is the conception of the shidduch population as completely static. It is not. I’ve said this before, but the landscape is fluid. People move to the right. They move to the left. (They do the hokey-pokey and they turn themselves around.) They withdraw from the parsha (ex. medical situations, a family challenge, starting higher ed, just needing time to regroup) and re-enter the parsha. They get divorced or widowed, unfortunately. Counting noses will only give you a snapshot of one moment in time. And personally, I think it’s wrong to go to Bais Yaakov schools and ask for the number of unmarried graduates. Maybe they don’t all identify as Bais Yaakov graduates anymore. Maybe some of them are not looking or able to get married right now. I don’t think these numbers are meaningful and it’s unfair to tout them.
4) The most major flaw of all is overlooking the basic fact that age differences are just so variable. It is downright silly to use anecdotal evidence from one homogeneous community to make sweeping statements about the klal. Think of five of your married friends and run the numbers. My five closest married friends are married to guys who are five years older, six months older, a few months younger, six months younger, and six months younger. I have looked into guys from eleven years older than me to almost three years younger than me. I know everyone’s experiences are different. But that’s the point. Everyone’s experiences are different.
5) Fun fact: About 1-2% more boys than girls are born each year (there are some scientific theories about why this is so), so that should mitigate the age gap somewhat, ha.
I don’t like to get so technical with numbers and percentages and whatnot but I guess at some point you have to fight fire with fire.
As compelling as arguments about the age-gap may seem at first blush, they are unscientific and anti-emunah. I know people mean well, but I really wish they’d stop printing things that hurt and scare women. It’s really not helpful.
I happen to have more to say on these ad campaigns but I’ll leave that for a different time.
Thank you for reading this!
Wow! What a well-written piece. I could literally hear passion oozing out of the page. Nicely done! I loved your points and agree with your fire-fighting tactics. Thank you for running your own numbers and validating how freaky it can feel to read this stuff when you were trying to sit down to some nice light reading on Shabbos. I knew it might be anti-emuna, but it’s good to hear it’s unscientific as well.
I need to read this piece every day. Maybe send it to my inbox every morning. 🙂