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| Image: http://www.nytimes.com |
So if you're a Jewish spinster like the rest of us and are wondering if you lost all your shots at marriage the day you stepped foot into university, the NY times says you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Although the article has been written without focusing on the Orthodox community... It studies men throughout the last centuries and looks at what they were looking for in a spouse.
And surprise of surprises, more men want to marry educated women than ever before!
Supposedly, they care much less about their wives cleaning and cooking abilities. I think the reason for that is that people don't eat in any more. They either buy frozen dinners, Chinese, or eat out altogether.
In the Orthodox community, where life revolves around the lokshen of Shabbos and the kugels of Yom Tov, I am pretty sure cooking is pretty high up.
The article points out that ironically the women who are more educated than the men overcompensate in cleaning and cooking to show the man that he is actually the boss.
Having been raised in quite a traditional male-dominated society (not only the religious community, but the secular one as well), women would constantly preach to me how the true wisdom of the woman is the ability to suppress her wisdom and make her husband feel like a million bucks (even if he is worth two).
Despite the fact that I am not going to act like an idiot to trap a man, I am looking to marry someone I can truly respect and look up to (physically at least)... Granted, I also want him to respect me.
In a weird way, the Charedi community is even ahead of the Modern Orthodox one in terms of cultivating educated women. A charedi girl's education will translate directly into her husbands bank account and determine the amount of years he can sit and kollel and do other holy things.
Being that we are a traditional patriarchal Orthodox society, and are often lagging about twenty years behind the secular community in terms of issues and awareness, what do you think is the climate in the community for dating?
Are erudite women more or less desirable because of their education?
Less, in my experience, though in all fairness, it depends on the guy.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty confident that any guy who is looking for an uneducated wife is likely not going to be great marriage material for an intelligent, worldly girl regardless of whether she has an education. If she feels that an education is important to her, forgoing it for the sake of meeting someone will only open up avenues she is not interested in (besides for possibly being something she regrets her whole life.)
ReplyDeleteIn the end we are all looking for one person and I think the best way to find the person who is right for you is to be as much "you" as possible, so when someone comes along and is interested, it is because they are truly interested in you. And in the end, we are all really just looking for one person anyways...
I believe most men do want an intelligent and well educated woman, but not more intelligent or educated than them. For some it is jealousy, and for others it is fear of eventually being looked down upon or being resented by their wife, or perhaps it's just an ego thing. But almost every single guy I know has expressed wanting an intelligent and well educated woman, but not more intelligent or educated than them.
ReplyDeleteI think that women have a harder time being with a man educationally inferior than men do being with a woman educationally superior.
ReplyDelete@ Anon 10:47
ReplyDeleteAlthough your sentence sounds really smart, I am not sure it makes sense. since you are saying that one thing is harder than the same exact thing.
Did you intend to write: "I think that women have a harder time being with a man educationally inferior than men do being with a woman educationally inferior."
Nope Tania, the sentence was written as it was intended. Read it again. You missed the aspect of gender difference.
ReplyDeleteI know this is a generalization and there are plenty of people who don't fall into this category, but most highly edeucated women I know would like to marry someone who matches them. My friends who are doctors or lawyers want guys who match them somewhat, and the ones who married guys who were less educated had to work hard to finally 'come around' and realize that just because he doesn't have a Masters' doesn't mean he isn't ambitious or motivated or make a good living for the family.
I know plenty of guys who had no problem dating girls who were more educationally advanced than them-- as long as the girls weren't arrogant or stuck-up and were able to make time for the family. (if a guy doesn't want to date a girl in medical school, it is not necessarily an intimadation thing, it's also a lifestyle thing in terms of time, residency, being on-call, etc)
Women have a harder time 'settling' for a guy who doesn't meet the list they had in mind. Men, on the other hand, tend to operate less from the fantasy-perfection model and if they fall in love with someone who wasn't what they had in mind when they came back from Israel for the year, they don't go through the same crisis. You won't hear a guy say, 'I don't know, she's a dentist but I always pictured myself with like an OT or a social worker'.