Boys are From Brisk...Girls are From Ma'alot!

"I offer no solutions... merely an analysis of a problem."

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships was, and still is, a classic of the relationship literature genre whose central thesis is nicely summed up in the title, to wit; that men and women are alien species to one another and that, absent training in decoding foreign-language messages, static invariably interferes with communications that are "garbled in translation".

More and more today, as part of the larger and multifaceted Shidduch-Crisis, we are seeing families wherein young men cannot /will not/do not court and marry women akin to their sisters and vice versa. This cannot but cause some communicative dissonance that, if not worked at to overcome, may metastasize into serious Shlom Bayis issues down the road.

Allow me to explicate: Qlei Qodesh, Career Mechanchim and "Lifer"-Kollelniks tend, disproportionately, to raise children inculcated with the values of "Torah for life" and "Secular studies are bad and bad for you". The boys growing up in these homes see learning in Brisk as the culmination of their dreams of sophisticated lomdus studied among like-minded and high-power-brain-endowed individuals in an ambiance of snarky kishron and being Mehavel Olam HaZeh and petit bourgeoisie Jewish society values. (See, in particular quote from Dante Alighieri) The girls raised in such homes view marrying such boys and being their helpmeets as a goal, nay THE goal, to be strived for. Both genders tend to grow up in families that are, if not absolutely impoverished, struggling, frugal and "uncomfortable" because money was always tight.

And here's where the dissonance begins. Both explicitly and implicitly, parents of such boys instruct them to seek "rich shidduchim" not (necessarily) because they are "gold-diggers" or seek "trophy" makhatonim or DILs but simply because, having struggled financially themselves, they'd prefer for their sons not to repeat their own history and to be able to learn ad infinitum with מנוחת הנפש= "tranquility of spirit". More often than not this means the boys, and/or their parents, pursuing PhDs="Poppa has Dough" shidduchim rather than young ladies with advanced degrees and/or lucrative careers, for these girls have been through the "contaminating" halls of academia and, as wives and mothers, might fail to inform the future Bayis Ne'eman with the necessary sanctity and purity.

OTOH these boys sisters MUST go to Ma'alot or to Raizel Wright (did I spell that wright or rong?) because, wanting Brisker Khasanim but lacking PHDs they must present shadkhanim with an alterantive "plan" for life support. A few of the more daring ones might venture into the hashqafically compromised classrooms of Touro, but none would dare go to Stern or, בר מינן an actual "Goyisha" college/university. And even if they might actually gaze favorably, yet wistfully, upon the superior education and wider career choices that these latter might offer, they/their parents could never afford the relatively high tuition of such Colleges.

Still, the "type" of person the girls "becomes" as a result of even this diminished form of higher secular education begins to vary from that of a mere female clone of her brother(s). Such sisters tend to become more organized, more professional, more oifgeklert and less sheltered than their brothers. In the course of their studies they will invariably become familiar in the ways and mores of surfing the web. If they are on "the market" for a few years they graduate and take jobs where they will grow more accomplished and successful in the more conventional (albeit in the more petit bourgeoisie Jewish society values ) sense of success and accomplishment than their brothers/prospective suitors. They will gain skills in dealing with a wider gamut of people from many different backgrounds in ways that their brothers/ prospective suitors will not and, more importantly, will not desire to.

In a word, the pragmatic, facts-on-the-ground realities and socioeconomic pressures inherent in preparing for a life of long-time/forever learning produces a disproportionate amount of girls whom boys like their brothers would never court and marry as "a first choice". The same families will have sons "going after" the daughters of successful, comfortable "groba" Flatbush, Boro Park and Five-Towns Baalei Batim while their own daughters will "only", nebikh, snag dates with boys from families who either "didn't make it (the cut) into Brisk" or boys from families and Yeshivas that have a less antagonistic attitude towards professionalism and their prerequisite higher secular education, i.e. less "Yeshivisha" families, than their own.

In my humble analysis this is one among the myriad of factors contributing to the "ground zero" of the shidduch crisis being the daughters of Kollenicks, Mekhankhim and sundry hardly-making-it Klei Qodesh. If lives of relative obscurity and poverty were not suffering enough they must now endure the heart wrenching spectacles of seeing their precious and beloved female offspring becoming dehydrated spinsters. I offer no solutions merely an analysis of a problem.
Qedusha-Havdala...Have you had yours today??? Hmmm???