Marriage

We are Jewish and our son wants to marry a gentile. Should we forbid the marriage?

I do not know if you are orthodox or not. You may never go to synagogue, yet retain the traditions of your religion and your family. Yet I hope you will permit your son to marry his gentile love. I hope so for your sake, as well as for your son’s sake.

I once knew a famous Jewish artist who had to “live in sin” with his beloved and did not marry her until his parents died. It all seemed so daft, so stupid, so narrow. Yet it is not only religion that seeks to control love; social class exercises much the same pressures for Park Lane does not seek its brides in White chapel. In real life, a merchant prince rarely marries a Cinderella.

Parents forbid the match and lose your son’s trust and love. Do you want it on your conscience that you have stopped him from marrying someone he loves? How will you feel if he drops this girl, and then goes on to marry an acceptable Jewess who leads him a hellish life? Of course, this may not happen—but then again, it may. And if it does, he’ll always be thinking: “My father and mother got me into this mess, and wrecked my life”

Parents are so many times inclined to judge a potential marriage by externals. “She plays the piano so nicely, and her father is a highly respected and successful doctor,” “He graduated with an M.A., and his father’s a Superintendent of Schools.” As if playing the piano or having a successful father insures compatibility and happiness.

Parents, too, see things in a biased manner, depending on whether they are regarding their child or their child-in-law. There’s the illuminating story about a visitor who asks her neighbor, “Mrs. Rosenberg, bow is your daughter Shirley?”

“Oh, Shirley?” comes the answer, “She has such a won­derful husband. A mink coat, a Cadillac-, servants galore! Such a fine husband! He serves her, her breakfast in bed, and she doesn’t ever get up till noon. Such a prince!”

“And your son, Sam?”

“Sam? What a bitch he married! He bought her a fur coat, and a car, and gives her every luxury. But she stays in bed till noon! Won’t even get up to give him his breakfast!”

What is your opinion of mixed marriage?

I think I should be a little concerned—not about the wedding—but about the children, for in our society a half caste must feel inferior. But I myself move in a society where no one cares whether a girl is a mulatto. So with anti-Semitism; we have Jewish children in Summerhill, and no one cares; most of our children don’t even know who is Jewish.

My daughter is 16. She is head over heels in love with a young man of 20 who attends college. The boy wants to marry her, and she is pressing me to allow it. This young man has wealthy parents who are willing to support him through college and somewhat thereafter, so there isn’t an economic roadblock here. However, I feel that 16 is too young an age for marriage. My daughter is as mature as anyone is at her age, but I just can’t get over my convic­tion that she is simply too young to get married. What do you think?

I personally would let her many the man, but I can see your maternal worry clearly. The girl is ready for a sex life and wants one. The marriage might end in failure, but that might happen if she were 26.

Let me indulge in fantasy. The youth is called up in the draft. He dies a miserable death in Vietnam. The girl cries: “We could have had, at least, a short time of happi­ness. They wouldn’t let me live with love.”

But, mother, I also sympathize with you. The young man has money, and you may imagine your daughter’s being swept into the rat race and its inanities with all that the young man’s wealth can provide—the expensive clothes, the big car, and the mad social round. Your daughter may be being offered a surface world, with everything deep and important shoved aside.

What is the alternative? A feeling on the part of your daughter that if she were loved by you, you would not frustrate her young love. You might really ask her to wait for a year; but if you demand that the waiting period be sexless, your daughter will still have a grouse.

It is so dangerous for parents to interfere with love. I have known more than one case where the parents thought the match unsuitable—lower class, you know—and they stopped the wedding. Then the girl, on the rebound, mar­ried the wrong man and misery.

You will have to weigh up the consequences of your decision with as much detachment as you can. Your ques­tion omits such important factors as: Do you personally like the youth? Do you think he is balanced enough to be a husband? Is your own sex life satisfactory; and if not, have your anxieties roots in your own fear? Are you frightened about almost everything? Is your daughter unhappy at home and seeking the first opportunity to leave it?

Another point. Doctors agree that girls reach maturity a good deal earlier than they did a generation ago. This girl may, at 16, be as ready for marriage as the 21-year-old of yesterday.

And, mother, bear in mind that many a girl has run away from home when faced with a ban on her love affair. If this happened, you would have a much greater worry on your mind.