Scissors symbolize the marriage, according to the imagination and experience of many. They are inseparably fixed but always move in opposite directions. However, they definitely punish anyone who comes in between them. Some think that in marriage one comes closest to either hell or heaven. However, according to a saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln, marriage is neither hell nor heaven, but it is sheer purgatory.
Choosing a wife is one of the most important and irrevocable personal decisions one makes in one’s lifetime. Hence, it is not advisable to make this decision based on one’s fancies and infatuations. No wonder many look to their sacred texts to receive guidance on this matter.
According to the Talmud, four months before a boy was conceived, a voice in heaven uttered whose daughter his wife would be! It plainly affirms that the marriages are made in heaven. A story in midrash narrates about a rich woman who asked a Jewish Rabbi about what God is doing after the work of creation. The rabbi answered that God was fixing marriages. She thought that it was not such an important or difficult job that required God. To prove her point, she went back to her palace and chose 1000 male slaves and 1000 female slaves and matched them up in marriages. The next day many slaves approached the woman. Some of them had broken legs, others cracked heads, still others bruises all over their body. All of them requested the woman to free them of their marriage bond!
In the Book of Tobit, one finds several pieces of advises Tobit gives to his son Tobias. One among them is about where to look for a spouse. Tobit instructs Tobias that he should take a wife from his own people. The instruction to marry follows the advice to keep away from all immorality. Jewish sages thought that marriage prevents one from sin. Not marrying is perceived as unnatural. Rabbis taught that the one who is unmarried is always thinking about sin.
The demand to marry one from one’s own faith is pervasive in various books of the Old Testament. One of the major reasons behind it is the threat of apostasy. If one has a gentile wife, she would turn the heart of her husband from the true God. Another reason is the fear of extinction. If Jewish men and women get assimilated into other faiths, the Jewish faith will cease to exist. The reason Tobit gives for why one should marry from one’s own kith and kin is that doing otherwise would be equal to humiliating or disgracing one’s own people.
The biblical stipulation to marry from one’s own people is relevant to several dwindling communities in the contemporary world. The world today is marked by close interaction with people from various countries, cultures, and faiths. Especially in the case of underdeveloped and developing countries, many of their youth cross national boarders to foreign cosmopolitan cities in search of better jobs and better lives. In their new life situation, they find it hard to live their faith, keep their culture, and maintain loyalty to their traditions as they are surrounded by people who differ from them in all these respects. Besides, and more importantly, in the absence of suitable people from “their own people” in the vicinity, they are forced to turn to their good friends for fulfilling their psychological need for love and care. Many would find it unfair to ask the young people to postpone satisfying their basic human needs until they find the apt person from their own community. However, others would consider the idea of easily allowing the youngsters to integrate into foreign cultures at the cost of losing their own identities detrimental to the very existence of the minority communities they originally belong to. The words of Tobit can illumine our thoughts: “My son, love your kindred, and in your heart do not disdain your kindred, the sons and daughters of your people, by refusing to take a wife for yourself from among them (Tobit 4,13). By training the youth to love and appreciate their own community, we can help them to take practical, reasonable, and mature decisions that will safeguard their personal interests and those of their community. One pertinent question is whether we are building up our community to such a stature that our youngsters can take pride in.
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