Although few mourn the demise of the consentless, arranged marriages of yesteryear, can we say that our current system of selecting marriage partners is so much more successful? Now that we have the freedom to choose, are we making the right choices? The divorce rate in the traditional Jewish community is still a small fraction of the secular world’s 50+ percent, but it is, unfortunately, growing. The dissolution of even one Jewish marriage, a metaphor for the holy union between G-d and His people, is a tragedy, and we must do all we can to reclaim the sanctity of this holy institution. What makes a marriage work? According to our author, making wise decisions in choosing the right partner and hard work top the list. True, we are told that G-d is the ultimate matchmaker, yet, as in all arrangements from Above, we must do our part to insure that G-d’s intention is fulfilled. Ira Axelrod, author of the fabulously popular article, “The Baal Teshuvah Marriage Dilemma,” (Jewish Homemaker, March 1993) sheds light on this immensely important issue.

As the unofficial Boston shadchan (matchmaker), I get to talk to a disproportionately high number of divorced individuals, so I believe that I have encountered a pretty fair sampling of why things “went wrong.” What is even more disturbing is what I hear from those who, fortunately, have not tasted from the bitter pill of a soured marriage, but who apparently are on their way toward making the same mistakes as those who have helped the “get” business expand.

Ask a male, or female, what he or she is looking for in a mate, and the word “attractive” (or its relative equivalent) will almost always come up. Better yet are the number of times a single individual will ask me to find more information about a particular guy or gal whom they “see” across a crowded room. Not a word was spoken between them, but the “eligible” is already half in “love” with his or her opposite number, based on looks alone.

I am not suggesting that some form of attraction should not play a part. Indeed, even the Talmud makes allowances for marital situations in which a spouse’s increasing lack of presentability is considered one of several quite legitimate grounds of marital dissolution. But for an individual to be instantly sought after—or, more often, rejected out-of-hand—strictly on the grounds of “looks,” is one of the most senseless phenomena of which I have ever heard.

For an individual to be instantly sought after, or rejected out-of-hand, strictly on the grounds of “looks,” is one of the most senseless phenomena of which I have ever heard.

Given this prevalent situation, I cannot help but dwell on what I must identify as exceptionally poor training for marriage on the part of our young people. Nor is it necessarily only their fault. The best yeshivas train a young man how to carry on a meaningful discourse with his chavrusa (study partner), but not with his mate. He is taught the depths of how to act with chessed (loving kindness) to the rest of the world, but not toward his spouse. He is taught to view himself with humility—except in the presence of his life partner. He is taught that his own desires must often be sublimated to those of the One Above, but not to the one standing or sitting next to him. An analogous case can also be made for equally great lacking on the part of young women who have just entered the marital state.

Too many of our young Orthodox individuals have fallen into general society’s trap of viewing marriage strictly in terms of what they can get out of it for themselves:

I want a partner who will: be nice to ME, please ME, interest ME, excite ME, serve ME. I am so often tempted to ask all of these “special somebodies” what they will do for the other party. Also, do they think they deserve such an immaculately-crafted specimen because they, too, are so perfect? Even when I merely hint at these thoughts, you’d be amazed at the responses; usually running along the lines of genuine surprise that the other party is human, too, and that he, or she, is also entitled to seek what he or she can get from a marriage. The concept that the other person has needs that must be met is as foreign to most marriage-seekers as would be an alien from Mars. If their words don’t say it, their actions (or reactions) invariably belie it: “I never thought of that!”

What I am really waiting to hear is something along the lines of, “I am looking for someone who can derive a great deal from that which I am capable of giving.” If I could have a penny for each time I waited in vain for that response, I’d be richer than history’s wealthiest Rothschild! Somewhat parallel to this “radically-advanced” concept is an appreciation by each individual that his or her current or future marriage partner may have interests, ideas, outlooks, etc. significantly different from one’s own. These variances can extend to art, politics, recreation, personal scheduling, food, clothing, and the list goes on. For instance, I react adversely to heat a lot more quickly than my wife does—whereas she has trouble with cold much sooner than I do. I have often said jokingly that I boil at 34 degrees and she freezes at 97. But that is exactly the point—it is a realistic recognition of the differences between us, and the commentary is made in a somewhat humorous fashion. It does not mean that just because I feel a bit warm on a cold day, my wife is obligated to open the window and freeze. We have a marriage (and a pretty good one, I might add), which means that we work out our differences in as mutually a satisfying way as possible, where our respective inputs are equally weighted. In 19 pretty good years, I have yet to be hospitalized for dehydration, or her for pneumonia.

Marriage is sharing and caring, contributing and participating.

That doesn’t mean that ingenuity can’t be a factor in each of us accomplishing our own individual agendas every so often. I can be busy with some activity in the house and my wife, 10 inches shorter than I, needs something taken down from a high place. Yes, it would be more convenient for her to move a step-stool over than to interrupt my activity to ask me to get it, but as she is reminding me—in the midst of my mock grumbling at being disturbed—“what do you think I married a tall man for?” I also realize that my retrieving the sought-after item takes a lot less time than her shuttling the step-ladder over—time that can be more constructively spent on accomplishing things that she does a lot better than I do. (Incidentally, it is no great shame for a man to admit that yes, there are things in which his wife excels him.)

On the other hand, I remember my wife often wondering aloud, before we were blessed with children, how we would work it on Shabbos morning with babies in the house. We both enjoyed attending shul, and as there was, in our synagogue, a special early minyan, primarily for husbands to attend so they could stay with the kids while their wives went to the regular services, my wife wanted to know if I would consider participating in that arrangement. She said this, of course, with the full knowledge that “early” is not a revered word in my vocabulary. I merely suggested that, as she abhors tardiness, I would have no objection to babysitting the kids if she went to the early minyan. The fact that she never did take me up on that offer and go to the hashkama minyan was not exactly surprising to me, but my creative and constructive response was undoubtedly the best thing I could do that would take into account each of our individual needs.

All kidding aside, we complement each other just about perfectly, while considering and addressing those areas that are our respective strengths and weaknesses. If there are two things of which my wife is half scared to death, it is public speaking and driving a car. For my part, I don’t know which end of a screwdriver is up, which means that for all activities, I am the family chauffeur and social secretary, and she is the house mechanic. Believe me, it works a lot better that way. Does that mean I am un-masculine and she is un-feminine? Does that mean that one of us is committing that “worst” of marriage crimes: to wit, “giving in”? Of course not! In spite of whatever differences in outlook that we have (and we do have plenty of them), we are both equally and strongly committed to making that partnership called “marriage” work.

In light of the modern world’s problems with pollution, a wry social commentator once said that life is like a sewer: you only get out of it what you put into it. However obliquely expressed, the sentiment is still right on the money: the fastest growing industry in the world is the service sector; millions of individuals are making a lot of money working as paid service personnel—but having a spouse is not about hiring your own personal service representative. Marriage is sharing and caring, contributing and participating. If a lot of our eligible singles fully appreciated the meaning behind these sentiments, one of the great factors in the divorce rate would be eliminated.

One area of potential disaster for a young couple is money. Living on love sounds all well and good, but it doesn’t pay the rent or the grocer. Or, as an “old friend” of mine, George Bernard Shaw, once put it, “You can be as romantic as you want about love. Don’t be romantic about money!”

The best yeshivas train a young man how to carry on a meaningful discourse with his chavrusa (study partner), but not with his mate.

I am not suggesting that, prior to accepting a date, a young lady should ask to see her potential suitor’s latest W-2 form. I am not even saying that, at the time of the engagement or the marriage, a man has to have a job at that moment. Whether it is kollel, graduate school, or just a recession, there are many legitimate reasons why an excellent prospective marriage partner may not be employed at a given point in time. The important consideration, however, is that the commitment to financial responsibility be present. A man could happen to be in a good economic way due to a few lucky breaks, but be lazy and/or irresponsible. Alternatively, he could be momentarily down on his luck, but possess great potential and a healthy work ethic. If I had to choose between the two, there is no question that I would select the latter.

Another related question involves the place of the woman in the financial scheme of things. It is, arguably, just about impossible in today’s day and age for almost any couple to achieve the great American dream (a house) on just one person’s income. But as Judaism does not generally believe in birth control, especially for financial reasons, all eventualities must be anticipated, to the best of both partners’ abilities, prior to making that ultimate commitment to holy matrimony. In today’s volatile world, it is almost a given that a couple will face some tough financial times at one point or another, and how they react to these setbacks could often prove the difference be-tween strengthening or, unfortunately, dissolving their marriage. Rather than the narishkeit that passes for conversation on dates between our young people today, if I were just starting out, I would look for tell-tale signs of how a prospective mate might react in times of adversity—financial or otherwise. There are, of course, no guarantees, but one can try.

It has been suggested that one of the reasons G-d did not provide each of us with the gift of prophecy is so that we can hone our personalities to be prepared to cope with the unexpected—what will undoubtedly occur. How often have I counseled marriage-seekers to observe carefully how their prospective mates deal with something that comes up for which he or she has not planned! Situational reactions can speak more volumes about the prognosis of a forthcoming marriage than almost any other indicator.

A somewhat parallel point goes one step further: How will he (she) react in what is guaranteed to be amongst the worst of times? My wife likes to quote what she once heard many years ago: “Is this the person you want to have sitting there when you get up in the morning?” Now that’s a fair question! Not always will one be leading with one’s best foot forward, so to speak, as one does on that artificial structure called a “date.” Just awakening in the morning, one may be grumpy, or a mess, or a zombie, or some combination thereof, until a) noon, b) the teeth have been brushed, c) one has had one’s morning coffee, etc. etc. Can you handle that in the other person? Do you think the other person can handle that in you? Think carefully! Those “early morning audiences” occur quite frequently in married life.

One of the best yardsticks to measure the happiness and fulfillment of a person is how well the said individual is achieving wedded bliss. Whereas I have often said, with the passage of years in my own wedded life, that mazel in marriage is truly a special blessing from Above, in this, as in everything else, we are not allowed to be dependent strictly on supernatural intervention. Besides prayer, a good marriage takes a lot of care—and a lot of work and, beforehand, a lot of insight.

Let all prospective brides and grooms renew and redouble their efforts to come closer to ensuring that the marriage they envision be a good one, with healthy doses of premarital insight and personality im-provement figuring prom-inently into the mix.

Only then will there be heard, in the proverbial cities of Judah and streets of Jerusalem, the glad and joyous voices of groom and bride in an infinitely greater proportion than the screaming and weeping of outraged husband and wife in front of a beis din.