Q:
How does a girl know when she’s ready for marriage?
A:
Now there are girls who say, “We’re not ready for marriage,” and therefore they postpone. But they have to know that by postponing they become less and less ready. And I’ll explain that.
Nobody is ever ready for marriage. Even Yankev Avinu, when he was told by his parents to go and take a wife in Padam Aram, he stopped off for a short visit of fourteen years in Yeshiva Shem v’Eiver.
And the question is: Who gave him a license to do that? Where is the kibud av v’eim? He was told by his parents to take a wife, not to go to the yeshiva. The answer is that although he was a young man in his late sixties already at that time, Yaakov understood that it’s too early to get married. He had to prepare for such a career. So for fourteen years he prepared. Like the gemara says, ילמד תורה ואחר כך ישא אשה. If it’s possible to do that, you prepare.
However, you have to know that when it comes to ourselves nobody will ever prepare himself properly. Because if you’ll be fourteen years in the yeshiva, by that time no girl will take you unless you go to the old age home. And you want to have children too. And therefore, it’s unadvisable to wait until you’re ready.
A girl who will wait till she’s ready for marriage will never get married. Besides the fact that nobody will take her, she won’t take anybody else because she’s too smart. She’ll see everybody’s faults.
And therefore, while she’s young and innocent and dumb, that’s the best time to get married. That’s the best time to get married because she’ll do it without asking too many questions. And that’s the only way to do it because nobody ever discovers the right party entirely. Everybody will discover after marriage that it’s the wrong person.
Of course you should never say it. All your life you have to say, “You’re the right one.” All your life you have to sing songs of praises to your spouse and say, “Hashem guided my footsteps.” Because actually that is the right one.
Nobody is ready to face all the tests of this world. And therefore, as soon as a person is able, he or she should get married because while you’re still young, while you’re still able to adjust, you’re not set in your ways, that’s the time when you’re able to weld yourself together with another personality.
After a while, you become a tough customer. You have to have things just this-and-this way that you do them. Each party likes his or her own ideas and his or her own ways and you’ll need a great deal of heat in order to weld them together – and it’s not available. So therefore, waiting is never advisable.
TAPE # 447
