though if you are old enough to get married, and old enough to propose, learn some Halachos.
Maybe I'm wrong, in which case, I am humbled.
I've complained in the past about the onlysimchas.com pictures that people post. I may be romantic at heart, but I find it tasteless that people wish to share with everyone their most private moments. You want to propose with petals and flowers and tea lights and all that, go ahead! But you need your buddies there to film it? So there will be one event of your life not captured on film and sent out to everyone!
Please don't tell me it's a generational thing. Just because you are the Instagram generation doesn't mean you should lose all sense of privacy.
And I've also complained about the boys who are proposing on one knee. Call me a Monsey Chareidinik (but really, please don't!) but that is just so....goyish. I'm sorry. Please. Do not go On Bended Knee.
And I've been somewhat irked that the proposal must come with a choice of diamond bracelet. OK, so not everyone wants to just pop the question, get an answer, and that's it. They want (amend that: the girls expect) a gift. Say it with flowers!
But this newest thing I noticed on onlysimchas, is proposing with ring! Which to begin with really makes sense. But I hope hope hope these new fiances are not putting it on or even handing it to the girl with the proposal - because as far as I know, kiddushin is with a ring. And you are then in theory, married. So normally you don't give the engagement ring directly to the girl.
Do you young people know that?? Or in the onlysimchas pictures with the girls flashing their rings, are the friends snappping the pics also the one who was the go between?
7 comments:
I don't think you are married if you give a girl a ring when in the cultural context, giving a ring after saying "Will you marry me?" is widely understood to be a propsal to be engaged, not married.
I agree with 100% on the privacy issue. I agree that people seem to have lost their sense of privacy/modesty.
This isn't a cultural issue: halachically when you give the girl a ring with intent to marry/a proposal, it is kiddushin
This isn't a cultural issue: halachically when you give the girl a ring with intent to marry/a proposal, it is kiddushin
It actually isn't kiddushin. You need two witnesses, and intent to create a kinyan of kiddushin by giving a ring.
Nevertheless,I do think you make some very good points. I am also amazed how the idea of privacy and tznius is being eroded by technology AND the need to be acknowledged, rated, commented on, 'liked', retweeted and 'viewed'. I guess since almost everything these days is 'shared' on FB, Twitter, Instagram etc why not marriage proposals.
Seems that posting online today, is the same as what used to pass for personal conversation, back before days of the internet.
There is nothing inherently special about the ring itself. Kiddushin can be made with any object, even a teddy bear. Or, with a staff and cloak, like by Yehuda and Tamar. That would mean any guy who bought a girl a gift and gave it to her in front of two people was executing kiddushin, and no rabbi would say that it so.
There is also intent. If he is not intending kiddushin, and does not utter "Harei at," it isn't kiddushin.
However, kiddushin and nisuin, once upon a time, was not done at the same time. There would be kiddushin, the official betrothal, and following a year, there would be nisuin. So even if hypothetically a proposal with a gift and witnesses was kiddushin (do you have a source for that?) they are getting married anyway.
I do concur that there is a lack in feinkeit when a private matter, such as two people committing to each other, has an audience. We have no photographs of my siblings' proposals, and I like it that way.
Princess Lea you are correct, besides for one thing. There is a big difference if, in fact, kiddushin has taken place.
If the couple end up breaking their engagement- the girl needs a get.
Halachic analysis:
http://bdld.info/2014/01/21/if-they-are-not-prophets-they-are-the-sons-of-prophets/
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