Saints and Sinners: Beauty of arranged marriages
Weddings come in all guises, including nutty. I am thinking of a wedding in the zany 1960s where the bride wore only a smile as she rode through the village streets sidesaddle on a horse, Lady Godiva-style.
The crowd lining the side of the street closest to where the bride on horseback was passing shouted “Hurray for our side!” The minister (dressed) then joined the couple in holy matrimony.
I once attended a wedding in Israel where just before the nuptials were solemnized, the groom lifted the veil of the bride and peered in at the face of the woman he was about to marry. It looked as if he was making sure he had the right girl. That is exactly what he was doing. Symbolically, at least, he was.
Both the bride and groom were Israelis and this is a custom at Jewish weddings in Israel. The tradition goes back to the time of Jacob and Rachel in the Old Testament. This love story is one of the most charming in all of literature. And it is not without its intrigue.
Jacob, who had cheated his brother Esau out of their dying father’s blessing, decided to get out of town to avoid his angry brother, who was reported to have murder on his mind. He went to live with his Uncle Laban and there he fell in love with his beautiful cousin Rachel.
In those days and times a man had to pay a dowry for his bride. Because Jacob was poor, he agreed to work seven years for his uncle in order to earn Rachel’s hand.
The story in Genesis says the seven years “seemed to him but a few days” because of the great love he had for Rachel.
At last the seven years were up and the wedding was arranged. But Laban pulled a trick on Jacob and instead of giving him Rachel to marry, he substituted his older — and not nearly as attractive — daughter Leah.
At the wedding ceremony it never entered Jacob’s mind to look under the bridal veil to make sure it was Rachel. And since it was dark in the tent where the bride and groom spent their wedding night, it wasn’t until the next morning that Jacob discovered he had married the wrong girl.
Arranged marriages where parents pick the wedding partners for their children are a thing of the past, at least in our individualistic western culture. Not that they didn’t turn out successful life partnerships.
A rabbi once said to me, “The romantic stereotype about the Jewish home — stable, warm and emotionally comfortable — describes not our Jewish homes today but the homes of those whose lives were brought together by family arrangement.”
He said, “For 4,000 years Jews were married off by their parents and, you know, it tended to work out.”
He added, “I often wonder how our homes with their tensions, their squabbles and their high rate of divorce prove the point that marriage by free choice is a change for the better.”
But aren’t arranged marriages “loveless” unions?
“The Bible tells us,” said this rabbi, “that when Isaac brought Rebecca home, he came to love her.'” Companionship led to friendship and friendship to love,” as it often does.
Rebecca had been picked for Isaac by the family servant!
A marriage counselor agrees that “arranged marriages tended to work out pretty well. The reason may be that parents often have more wisdom in these matters than youth who tend to select a partner on a more superficial basis.”
Nobody is advocating a return to arranged marriages in our western cultures but many are concerned about what is happening to modern marriages. “I don’t believe society can long survive the disintegration of marriage,” said the rabbi being quoted in this column. “If we let loose of the family, I am afraid we will lose one of the last opportunities for developing and maintaining sanity in our world.
George Plagenz is an ordained minister and veteran newsman based in Columbus, Ohio.