adapted from posts from my blog –  www.materialmaidel.blogspot.com

Over Shabbos cake and tea, my friends and I discussed the crazy and often outrageous questions asked to girls by Shadchans.

Here are a few winners:

  • Does the girl wear her seatbelt over her chest or does she put the seatbelt strap behind her? (obviously, if the girl dies in the process, she can no longer be a possible match, but at least she's tznius)
  • Does she stack dirty dishes at the Shabbos table or does she take each dish to the kitchen individually? (do wives = maids without pay?)
  • Is her Shabbos tablecloth white silk fabric or does her family use clear plastic? (again, modern convenience is a sign of laziness)
  • What is her waist size? (why not ask her mother's waist size? actually, ask for the mother's picture while you're at it! might as well come to terms now with what a girl will end up looking like 9 months after the chasuna!)

Then today at a family BBQ, my single cousins shared some more treasures that they've recently heard:

  • A question actually asked to a female reference: Does he wear boxers or briefs? (first of all, if she knew the answer, I'd be a little creeped out. And II, why don't they just outright ask for a sperm count? or maybe I speak too soon – that may actually one day be a real q)
  • Does she sleep in a nightgown or pj pants? (personally, I could never understand how a long t-shirt that rides up while you're sleeping could possibly be tznius, never mind more tznius than pants)
  • What kind of bed do the parents sleep on? Is it one big bed? (oy vey) Is it two separate beds? Are they pushed together? (oy vey)

It always surprises me to hear those crazy questions asked by today's yentas (aka Shadchans). Personally, the craziest question I ever got was whether I wore pantyhose or not (ok, crazy where I'm coming from). But still, all those stories I hear from my friends have me wondering what some people are smoking today.

First – because those questions are mamush crazy. ( I know, I wrote 'mamush'. But I live in Brooklyn – I guess the peer pressure has finally gotten to me. But don't worry. I haven't started wearing headbands on the back of my head with a major poof in front. And Grey's Anatomy is on summer hiatus, so I stopped using 'seriously'… well not seriously, but kinda)

Ok back to crazy.  So crazy. The questions are simply nuts. What normal (non-retarded) person would ask such a question?

Second – because aren't these people supposed to be 'frum' (whatever that means). Shadchans pretend that they ask these questions because they 'need to know' how 'frum' a single is. And yet, rather ironically, the questions posed are so incredibly UN-frum, UN-tznius, horribly indecent, morally-debasing and degrading. I would even add 'dehumanizing' to my list of complaints. That's right. Treating men and women as though they are pieces of meat, up for inspection to be sold at market is dehumanizing.

What does this demonstrate of the values and morals of today's society? How does this reflect on the ideals of the so-called 'frum' community?

Concerns about someone's lineage, wealth, appearance, job – aren't those extremely gashmius, un-holy, un-frum concerns?