All ages, it's never too late to get married; even elderly people should get married. Lo tov heyos ha'adam l'vado, it's not good to be alone. But nobody should wait to mature. To say that this boy is immature or this girl is immature – that's saying that… You're not going to help them, you'll let them remain immature. Because if they won't marry they will remain exactly what they are; marriage matures them.
People must marry however on one condition – they must marry not like Gentiles – they must marry like Jews. If they marry like Jews, then it's never too early, married like Jews means like this, you are married forever, you are married for good – you're not marrying for trial and testing – no matter what. Once you take the plunge, you're going to say all your life I love it; you shouldn't complain. Don't look back and think you could've done something else, don't try to back out of it, forget about the crazy ideas of the world, divorce. You are married and that's it.
Now if you do that, then you're going to mature in marriage; there might be some quarreling, but there's no use waiting. Because the longer you wait, it's like a branch of a tree. A branch of a tree that grows bending outwards, while it's still pliable you can bend it this direction and the other direction, but once it sets, and it's old and hard, you cannot change it.
When two young people marry they can adjust, there may be some difficulties at first, but they'll adjust more or less. But people who are older that marry, then it's not so easy to adjust, each one has their own habits. He likes to keep his socks on a chair near his bed, and she doesn't like the socks near her bed where she's lying, she wants the socks someplace else. And so each one has their idiosyncrasies and it's not going to be that easy.
However, nobody should hold back because of that, because marriage in itself is rewarding, it changes character even in elderly people. When you must collaborate with somebody else, you must yield somewhat of your own stubbornness, then it's a great benefit for the soul. Besides opportunities to do kindliness to each other, what a selfless bachelor won't be able to do.
And therefore it's never too late to marry, but it's certainly important to marry as early as possible.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Important Numbers
