Beha'alosecha (Numbers 8 - 12)
GOOD MORNING! For the last fifty years the institution of marriage has been under attack (or at least under siege). There are many reasons for this, such as: changing societal values regarding the fulfillment of individualistic needs or desires; living in a society with high divorce rates leading to a reconsideration of the long-term viability of marriage; redefining what constitutes a marriage; and rising cohabitation and non-traditional living arrangements.
The seriousness of the first reason is perhaps best exemplified by recent data out of China. The Chinese National Census, released in May, indicates a looming population crises as the fertility rate fell to 1.3 children per woman in 2020. A rate below 2.1 usually heralds a population decline. 1.3 is a catastrophic number for Chinese society. The report also noted that, as the fertility rate in China’s major metropolitan cities is only about 0.7-0.9, an increasingly urbanized young population could drag the national fertility rate down to 1.0.
There are a number of reasons for this low fertility rate, including many decades of the government regulated one-child policy (increased to two in 2016 and three in 2021). Additionally, the culture’s view of the primacy of males over females led many families to choose to have a male child. Today, in China’s Gen Z population of 220 million, there is a huge gender imbalance; there are almost 19 million more men than women. To even more severely compound the issue, in a survey of some 3,000 women between the ages 18-26, almost 44% said they will probably never marry or have children.
This looming Chinese catastrophe isn’t just a societal issue; it has huge economic repercussions as well. The ever increasing older workforce cannot be replaced by younger workers with these birth rates. While the rest of the world may view this crisis as welcomed news – a situation that couldn’t happen to a more deserving government – we have to be careful. Unfortunately, it could force those megalomaniacs in Beijing to attempt to achieve some societal goals through military means. This has to be carefully monitored.
The second reason, regarding high divorce rates, is a direct result of living in a disposable society. Growing up I remember there being repair shops for TVs, computers, shoes, etc. In previous generations, when something needed to be fixed they worked on it. Today, the attitude is throw it out and buy another; there is no innate work ethic or desire try to fix anything. Small wonder that the institution of marriage is treated the same way. Of course, this also creates a cascading effect as getting divorced now has less of a stigma.
The last one, the rise of cohabitation, is the focus of a new study by University of Denver psychology professors Scott M. Stanley and Galena K. Rhoades. The two have studied aspects of cohabitation for more than two decades and yet they both remain surprised that as the world has changed – and cohabitation patterns with it – the finding on marriage durability hasn’t.
They estimate that today over 70% of couples cohabit before marriage. Astonishingly, they conclude that cohabitation is now more a part of dating culture than of marriage culture. So it should come as no shock that, in relative terms, marriages of those who moved in together before getting engaged or married were 48% more likely to end in divorce.
This confirms the 2010 government study called National Survey of Family Growth (NFSG) that concluded that there is a group for whom marriage before 30 is not risky: women who married directly, without ever cohabiting prior to marriage. In fact, women who married between 22 and 30, without first living together, had some of the lowest rates of divorce in the NSFG.
Perhaps at the core of this problem is the fact that, in general, the concept of marriage is misunderstood. On the one hand, marriage carries significant legal implications; property rights, inheritance issues, tax benefits, insurance benefits, custody arrangements, etc.
But that’s not what marriage is about. Marriage is about wanting to share your life with someone special whom you love and trust and with whom you want to create a home and family. Someone whom you are committed to giving to and making their life better. It has been said that we fall in love not with our mates’ best attributes, but rather in their failings. Because it is in those that we complete them.
We learn some important lessons about the Torah’s perspective on marriage from this week’s Torah reading.
Moses heard the people weeping by their families, each one at the entrance of his tent [...] (11:10).
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