Should love come before the wedding, or does it come afterwards?different views

Love built on Jewish foundations is not wrapped in romantic mystification and is not blind, as in poetry and novels: it grows out of knowing each other. True romance blossoms after the wedding, when two people draw close in soul and body. The Torah first tells us that Yitzchak married Rivka and only then that he loved her; affection before marriage can be sincere, but deep, lasting love based on knowledge comes only through shared life. The romantic method rests on chance, idealisation and emotion, and on two unspoken rules: never admit an honest interest in marrying, and meet one's spouse by accident rather than by plan. He draws a comparison: nobody buys a car or a house at random, and choosing a business partner requires studying his character, assets and reputation. Marriage is a far more serious partnership, and it calls for a considered, systematic plan.

“Scripture tells us first that Isaac married Rebecca and only then are we informed that he loved her.”

The Torah shows both paths. Of Yitzchak it is said that he first married and then loved; Yaakov, however, loved Rachel at first sight and worked seven years for her, and the Ohr HaChaim explains that the source of this love was the sense that she was his partner for life. Under the chuppah we bless re'im ha'ahuvim, friends who love each other, and Rashi explains that this refers to the chassan and kallah appointed as partners in a shared mission in life. So there is no single correct script.

“in the Torah we find various possibilities for the experience of love”

In the movies people marry because they fell in love and part because they fell out of it, but that was not love; it was a mixture of novelty, desire and infatuation. By the Torah one marries not for love but because Hashem has a plan: a man and a woman on their own are each half of a whole, and what is needed is precisely the one created as your match. That is why love is not part of the search process. But the movies are half right: if love is not grown and guarded after the wedding, the marriage has almost no chance.

“Love doesn't determine who you marry, but a marriage without love will fail.”

He points out that in the account of Yitzchak and Rivka the marriage is named before the love. The author understands this as the possibility of developing the feeling through further acquaintance and care. It is not a promise that love will necessarily arise with any particular choice.

“The love will come later as you get to know them and give to them.”

The Torah says of Yitzchak: he brought her into the tent, took her as a wife, and he loved her. Love stands at the end, not the beginning. People err in thinking that the right match is the one you fall in love with on meeting; in fact one marries first and the feelings form afterwards, because real love is felt only once something has been invested in the marriage. Of the secular formula that love leads to marriage he speaks harshly: the partners in it love not each other but themselves, since each expects the marriage to make him happy. He tells the parable of a rebbe who saw a student eating fish: if you love the fish, build it an aquarium and feed it, do not eat it; say honestly that you love yourself.

“First you marry, and only then do the emotions form.”

Contrary to popular opinion, a relationship that begins with infatuation stands on a shaky foundation. Of Yitzchak and Rivka it is said: he married her, she became his wife, and he loved her; and Eliezer had told of her outstanding chesed. What actually happens when two people fall in love? He feels she will meet his emotional needs, she feels he will meet hers; there is no shared goal, each is occupied with himself. But if husband and wife value each other highly for their character and share a common goal, a far deeper and more lasting love grows.

“He married Rivkah, she became his wife, and he loved her”

In other circles marriages are made by blind inclination, with passion as the matchmaker, which crowds out sober reflection exactly where it is needed most; blinded people of different natures never really get to know each other and enter marriage with notions that reality quickly refutes, and then come coldness and estrangement. Jewish marriages are preceded by the most cool-headed and careful examination of whether temperament, character and all the other conditions of future happiness suit each other; and only when reason has agreed is inclination consulted. The wedding here is not the summit but the sowing of a life.

“An Isaac who allows his Rebecca to be brought to him by his Abraham, is seldom disappointed.”

Yitzchak brought her into Sarah's tent, took her as a wife, loved her and was comforted after his mother: from a Western point of view the order is strange. In Sarah's lifetime there were visible signs of the Shechinah in her tent; after her death they disappeared; Yitzchak's criterion was a wife's ability to recreate that atmosphere, and the proof of it decided the matter. Love matters, the Torah names it as one of the purposes of marriage, but it is the consequence of a marriage built on a shared vision and purpose in life. At the same time he qualifies: some emotional connection must still arise before the decision to marry.

“love is a consequence of a marriage based upon a common vision and goal of life”

A caution: he relates what he heard from a seminary teacher, that romance in a Jewish marriage is irrelevant, that the first boy is as suitable as any other, that only a similar hashkafa matters, and that love can come later. According to a growing body of research, he says, this is so wrong that it may explain the very rise in the divorce rate.

“the concept of romance in a Jewish marriage is irrelevant”

A young woman who had lost her father told the Rebbe that she had met several young men but did not want to marry any of them, and the Rebbe, naming several of them, remarked that she read too many novels. Love, he explained, is not the blinding, all-consuming emotion of books: that is a fictional world with invented feelings. Real love is a feeling that strengthens throughout life: involvement, care and respect, building a shared life, a family and a home. What a young bride feels is only the beginning; after five or ten years love turns out to be the result of a gradually strengthening bond, when each can no longer imagine life without the other. A young woman from Russia wrote to the Rebbe that she had agreed to marry and asked for a blessing. The Rebbe circled the word agreed and answered that he wanted to believe she had something more than mere agreement.

“It is through the small, everyday acts of living together that love flourishes and grows.”

If a couple is matched by well-considered criteria, the first infatuation deepens into a healthy relationship that brings both of them joy. But they have met couples who built the whole decision on feelings, and a few years later there was striking contempt between them: the picture from the fantasy cracks sooner or later, a reality far from ideal remains, and falling from such a height hurts.

“Far better to feel content in the beginning than to feel ecstatic.”

Dizzying infatuation is not needed for a good marriage. Deep love and real intimacy usually arise after the wedding, through shared experience, trials and faithfulness to the commitment. Before the chuppah something else matters: basic attraction, working communication, shared values and genuine enjoyment of each other's company. But one should not go to the opposite extreme either: some approach love so much with the head that they marry without liking the person and without feeling connection and safety.

“Swooning, infatuated, fantasy-like love is not a prerequisite for having a good marriage.”