Talk:Child marriage in Judaism

Necessary?

Is this really sufficiently different from the Marriageable age in Judaism article to warrant a separate article? The summary left there is too long to be a proper summary, but trimming it leaves the original article a stub, with little reason to exist. Either:

A. This article should be remerged into Marriageable age in Judaism

or

B. Marriageable age in Judaism should be deleted, the stub information moved into the general article on Jewish views of marriage where it is not duplicating information.

In the latter case, you can provide a brief (much shorter than the one you gave) summary of Child Marriage and a link this article from Jewish views of marriage. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 17:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

As you can see now that you've removed the duplicate information, the *summary* of Child marriage in Judaism given in "Marriageable age in Judaism" is now as long as the rest of the article put together. Definitely a clue that:

1. Your summary is too long

2. "Marriageable age in Judaism" has too little unique information to warrant its own article without it

--ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 18:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem with B, is that when that article (Jewish views of marriage) is filled out, which I intend to get round to at some point, if no-one else does before, it will be pretty large anyway.

Currently there, it goes on about the get in some detail, but mentions nothing much else about divorce rights in Judaism, which is quite a large topic, especially considering the complications that Judaism adds to re-marriage of divorcees (and widows); eg. Isha katlanit. It also lacks mention of restrictions on marriage, such as mamzers, spadones, questions of incest in Judaism (which is a bit of a stub at the moment, but I may come back to it soon), and arayot in general. It also lacks much discussion of the duties of husband and wife (a fairly big topic - see, for example, Jewish Encyclopedia on husband and wife).

Hence, B isn't really an option.

About A. That was my original idea. Then I saw that the child marriage article (the article about child marriage in other religions/states) was different to the marriageable age article. It made me think that perhaps there is actually more to say on child marriage.

I haven't got a source that goes into the ancient Jewish communities in Pakistan, Yemen, etc., but since national law is more lenient there, marriage-age wise, I suspect there might be quite a bit to say about the views/practices of the Jews there.

Also, as the article doesn't go into 20th century(+) Jewish denominations (Orthodox, vs. Reform, vs. Progressive, vs. Conservative, etc.), there might be something to say about these specifically. Especially given how much western society now objects to child marriage.

Thus, I'd like to leave it as a distinct article for a few months (6 or 7 maybe) to see if anyone has anything to add to it.

However, I'm very happy for the 'child marriage' section of Marriageable age in Judaism to be summarised more briefly there; similarly the 'sex/betrothal/marriage' section of Age of majority in Judaism. If you have a way of doing that that avoids potential future edit wars about whether Judaism is pro-paedophilia (a claim I've already had to point out is nonsense, to another editor), then please go ahead. I don't own the article, after all.

Newman Luke (talk) 18:18, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've issued a proposed deletion note on Marriageable age in Judaism. This article seems to have more of the unique, useful information. The remainder of Marriageable age in Judaism really belongs in this article, Jewish marriage or Age of majority in Judaism. I really see only two or three sentences worth of unique information left in Marriageable age in Judaism, and the topic itself screams "section in Jewish marriage article". I just saw your reply, will address it in subsequent post. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 18:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

To your point on the excessive length of the Jewish marriage article, I'd suggest that if the details of the get are bloating the article, that the get should get its own article. Divorce laws are extremely complex, and definitely warrant an article; marriageable age can be summarized with a relatively brief section (with the additional details you want to add, I'd say it warrants maybe 3-5 paragraphs, or about a single monitor sized "page". Spin off the get, add the details on marriageable age (with a link to the more detailed comments on child marriage in particular, which may be the best place to lay out the gory details) and drop marriageable age article. In the end, you have three articles of moderate size (Jewish marriage, Get, and Child marriage in Judaism). The parent article covers the subject in general, the two child articles cover specific, gritty details too long and too distracting for the main article. Marriageable age, being directly tied to the marriage practices, doesn't require another click through, while people interested in the involved information regarding adjunct topics can look there. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 18:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

While I recognize the precedent set by child marriage and marriageable age, those are extremely general articles, covering a gamut of cultures and practices. Jews, while diverse in their practices, are, by definition, a subset of the world population; the detail and complexity of their marriage laws will be necessarily less complex than that of the world as a whole, and as such don't justify the same gamut of articles. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 18:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, most of the discussion of the get should be confined to the get (divorce document) article. But that's not the crux of the issue.

There is much more to divorce than the get, and the agunah. There are:

• restrictions on the right of a man to divorce his wife
• whether a chaste wife can be divorced
• deliberate talmudic attempts to make divorce more difficult
• divorce initiated by the wife (eg. Salome)
• court ordered divorce
  • when the wife finds legitimate fault with her husband
  • compulsory divorce against the wishes of the couple
• custody of children
• restrictions on re-marriage of a divorced couple to each other
• restrictions on marriage of a divorcee to certain other persons
• delays imposed on re-marriage (due to bereavement etc.)
• levirate marriage / compulsory re-marriage

Almost none of this is presently in the article. When it is the article will be larger than it is now, even after most of the get material is removed.

Other topics that need to be in the 'views of marriage' article are:

• attitudes to marriage, and to non-marriage - this is barely mentioned at the moment, and yet there's quite a lot of material in the Talmud, and bible about it
• attitudes to specific marriages - some Talmudic rabbis really disliked their wives, for example, and were quite bitter about their marriages.
• polygamy vs. monogamy - the biblical Israelites and the Talmud are polygynous (one man, many wives), modern Jews mainly are not; why?
• treatment, responsibilities, and freedoms, of one spouse in relation to the other. There is enough for an entire article in its own right about this, yet its passed over in barely a few sentences at the moment.
• adultery, including the Ordeal of the bitter water, and judicial punishments
• qualities looked for in a potential spouse. These are specified in the talmud, and include:
  • social status - respectability of the family, learnedness of the father, choosing below oneself in status, argumentative families
  • beauty - unlike beauty is only skin deep, the talmud encourages choosing a beautiful spouse. songs were sung about this, in biblical times.
• restrictions on possible choice
  • ability to give consent - the insane cannot marry, nor can the deaf and dumb (not just deaf or just dumb), except (in the latter case) by sign language. this has implications for divorce too.
  • incest - the Jewish definition is fairly complicated, and differs significantly between the Karaites and Rabbinical Jews
  • people excluded from the 'congregation' - mamzers and spadones
  • further restrictions for priests/Kohen in particular

virtually none of the above is in the 'views of marriage' article, yet it eventually needs to be there; when it is it will be a VERY large article. Hence, its simply not practical for marriageable age to be squashed there instead of in its own article.

Newman Luke (talk) 19:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I think this indicates a problem with the Jewish marriage article. I think it calls for a better split of the high level article. One article can discuss Jewish marriage customs, one for the biblical law and another for divorce law. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 19:06, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. However, I haven't entirely worked out how to do that yet.

I thought maybe having a divorce in Judaism article. This is currently a redirect to Get (divorce document); but that can only be about the divorce document, not all the other issues.

But the problem with a divorce in Judaism article is that you can't include re-marriage because widows would not be included (widows not being divorcees), hence you'd also need a remarriage in Judaism article, and I'm not sure people would agree to that - I can't find a precedent for it on wikipedia for any other religion or a general thing (Remarriage, for example, just redirects to marriage).

Then you have arayot. That could take some of the material about restricted relationships. But its a more nuanced term than that; its things that are forbidden to uncover the nakedness of. Arayot includes mishkvei ishah, which is some man-on-man sex act, and therefore not exactly marriage-related.

The stuff about choosing a bride could go into a subsection of some new Engagement in Judaism; that way it could take the arayot/restricted stuff and the beauty/social status stuff. But then it would also have to talk about match-making, and problems with jewish inter-sex socialisation. And the problem with that is that none of it is actually about the act of getting engaged, or about actually being engaged. Its more finding someone to get engaged to, in Judaism, which is an absurdly contrived title. Shiddukin would be a good alternative. But that will get confused with the thing a match-maker in particular does, which is also called Shiddukin.

Also readers/editors are bound to get Engagement (shiddukin) confused with Betrothal (erusin), because people get confused about what Betrothal is. They are told its not the same as marriage, and involves exchange of a ring, so they mistakenly conclude it must be engagement. The 'views of marriage' article already is littered with this mistake - exchange of ring is there erroneously called 'engagement ceremony', instead of 'betrothal ceremony', for example.

And even if you sort that out, it still leaves the discussion of attitudes to marriage in general and in particular cases - which most definitely belong to an article called 'views of marriage' more than anything else. It also leaves discussion of polygyny vs. monogamy.

It also leaves discussion of duties/rights/treatment of a spouse to/with/by another, which is a huge, article-sized area. But how can you farm that off to another article - what would you call it? Rights, responsibilities, and treatment, of one spouse to another, in Judaism is a bit of a ridiculously long article title. Maybe spousal interactions in Judaism, but that's just absurdly artificial, and reads like its some bizarre euphemism for sex. Or perhaps being a Jewish spouse, but that sounds like a political slogan, or a book title.

Newman Luke (talk) 19:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

My central point is that articles should be created in two cases:

1. For high level topics

2. For mid level topics with sufficient depth and detail to demand they be separated from the high level article

Anything else should be covered by sections and subsections in the article. When you encounter an article that is far too long, the first approach should be to figure out if there are multiple high level topics being combined, such that splitting them up would reasonably evenly divide the information. Thus my suggestion to separate Jewish marriage into an article on customs, biblical law, and divorce law (I personally think an article on divorce law should have been created prior to creating the article for the get in particular). The resulting high level articles can all be linked together, either with a unifying category for a larger number of articles, or by mutually providing each other as See Also links for a handful of articles.

Next, look for disproportionately large, ideally tangential sections (if it's a tangent from the main article, then it's easier to justify spinning it off, since it reduces the overall quality and readability of the main article; if it's just too long it may still belong on that page). Trim them down if possible (remove redundant information, incorporate information by reference to other wikipedia articles rather than explaining it inline, etc.). If after trimming they are still far too long and distracting, then consider making a child article with the information (I've done this once before, spinning off Youth incarceration in the United States from Incarceration in the United States due to the demonstrated amount of additional information and the fact that the Youth Incarceration section was dwarfing and distracting from the general information on Incarceration as a whole). So if the article on divorce law ends up with way too much get specific information, while still standing on its own as a valid article without it, create the get article. If child marriage is too distracting from the general discussion of marriage law, spin it off as a child article and incorporate it by reference. My problem here is that marriageable age in Judaism doesn't meet the criteria of being either high level or particularly long, let alone distracting. If after adding it to a Jewish marriage related article, it eventually grows into a hulking behemoth that devours the page, then you should feel free spin it off then, but don't jump the gun. A dozen fragmentary articles are much harder to work with than two or three well distributed high-level articles.

Sorry for the overly verbose rant, but I want you to understand my reasoning. It's not that I don't think Marriagable Age in Judaism could ever warrant it's own article, it's that it is better as a section right now. Your concerns about Jewish marriage possibly getting too large are hypothetical; until it happens, it's much more useful to keep logically grouped things in one article, rather than force readers to visit multiple pages to get information more appropriate to one. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 19:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Your most recent post did bring up a third reason to create an article which I wanted to add to my list. Specifically, creating short, extremely specific pages is appropriate when you are basically creating a dictionary definition page, and the word in question is relatively complex and must be referenced from multiple places. So articles defining the various untranslatable or loaded terms like shiddukin and erusin are perfectly acceptable, and can include some detail on the term itself for the express purpose of removing the need to explain it repeatedly in other articles. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 19:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

My concerns about Jewish marriage getting too large are very VERY real. I've been trying to put together the material from the various now public domain Encyclopedias about it, and it just comes out as some huge monster - currently around 250k now. And that's after all the duplicate material is merged, and quite a bit of material is cut out.

Erusin already would be a huge article. There's a ton of material about the ceremony, and how it differs in various parts of the world, and in history, and all the alternatives and biblical origin.

Shiddukin too would be really quite large.

But the key point is if all of that was farmed off into distinct subarticles - Erusin, Shiddukin, Divorce, /whatever etc. - the main article will STILL be huge, because there's so much material that even just one paragraph of summary per subarticle would make it larger than the usual recommended maximum size for a main article.

Also, this (Marriageable age....) is a new article. Why the rush to delete? What's wrong with leaving it for a bit?

Newman Luke (talk) 19:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, for the definition articles, you don't even need a summary in the high level articles. Just incorporate them by inline links while describing the broad view. As for "rushing" to delete, my main concern is content forks. Too often identical information or logically grouped information gets split up, and it becomes a Sisyphean task to read it all, let alone watch it all. New editors end up adding partial information to the wrong, but "close enough" article, and often you end up with multiple articles disagreeing, or one low priority article being neglected. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 20:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

A content fork is a rival article. Like the prongs on a fork are rivals to one another, or a fork in the road has two rival choices. This is NOT a content fork. It cannot be. There isn't a rival article to it. Newman Luke (talk) 20:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Religion and marriage

I think this article along with the content from the other would fit in nicely as a sub article on the entire topic of marriage across many religions. Alatari (talk) 22:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC) What about a topic on Marriageable age. If someone comes here looking for information on the marriageable age then to retain WP:NPOV Judaism can't be the only POV. Alatari (talk) 22:44, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, the Marriageable age exists and the Judaism reference is made. That article needs expanding. Alatari (talk) 22:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Just FYI, the religious reference was added by the author of this article earlier this afternoon. Adding information on the religious rules for marriageable age to that article isn't a bad idea, but I wouldn't read too much into the fact that Judaism is mentioned. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 22:50, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

(a) Religion and marriage would be an absolutely huge article, into which there would be insufficient space to put a section about marriageable age in Judaism.

(b) Marriageable age is a long list. Since it is a list, and it is already quite big, it would not be a suitable location for a long prose section about Judaism in particular.

Perhaps you mean something like marriageable age in religion or religion and marriageable age or religious views of marriageable age. I can see that working in theory. Unfortunately, in practice, I know of no religion other than Judaism that sets specific rules about marriageable age - as far as I'm aware religions other than Judaism have no opinion on the matter, and instead they just go with whatever the national law says (though I could easily be incorrect about this).

Newman Luke (talk) 22:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)