I'm a Barnes & Noble junkie: I hang out in their stores, am a member, and buy from them online. I was at one of their stores tonight and came upon a book with a title that caught my eye: "Better Single than Sorry."
I didn't read the book but from what I could see from the back cover, the basic idea that the author discusses in the book is that it's better to be single than to be stuck in a relationship with the wrong person.
It seems like a pretty reasonable idea, and it's one I've had independently long before I read the book title, yet it's not a concept often discussed in the frum community. As I've mentioned before, marriage is a top priority in the Orthodox world, and the younger the better. The state of being single is not encouraged, so "Better Single than Sorry" isn't a piece of advice you'll find common in the Orthodox community.
But it should be. Not because some woman wrote a book about it, but because while marriage is put up on a pedestal in the frum world, it doesn't always turn out so great. Too often young people get married because it's what they've always been taught is the right thing to do and because it's so exciting to be in the center of attention and they don't realize what, exactly, they're getting themselves into.
There needs to be an equal emphasis in the frum world on how being single is better than being in a bad marriage. The state of being single is so deplored that people will marry just to get away from being single, and that's a bad reason to get married.
Better single than sorry -- I have to agree with that one.
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This is such a good point - and still holds true today.
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