the ideal wife? Not young and dumb
as some cynically say of the nubile set. According to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/6434315/Men-should-marry-young-smart-women-say-scientists.html, they should be young, that is younger than their husbands (so much for the current shidduch crisis solution currently in vogue) and smart. My husband pointed out this article in his comment on http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2010/01/do-smart-womem-make-better-wives.html.
Well, actually he is not older, though I do have one degree higher. The same site further tries to make the case for younger wives -- in this case as much as 17 years younger -- in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/men_shealth/5426895/Men-live-longer-if-they-marry-a-younger-woman.html
But I can tell you that Ruben died while his far younger second wife was pregnant wit
h their fifth child, so he didn't really extend his life by marrying younger. Another famous couple we save featured at the museum was Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (26 August 1743 – 8 May 1794). In the portrait (which you can see in the Metropolitan Museum of Art) he appears with his wife whom he married when she was just 14 (according to our guide, 13 according to a website) and he was 28. (This was not considered a at all deviant at the time). However, he did not live long because he was guillotined for the crime of being a tax collector at the time of the Revolution. I know, I know, that is not a natural death. But I don't quite buy the statistics behind their conclusion either. Come to think of it, Boaz married Ruth at 80 and did not live as her husband for more than a day. Yitzchak, on the other hand, outlived his wife by many decades, though she was (according to Midrash) 37 years younger.
Well, actually he is not older, though I do have one degree higher. The same site further tries to make the case for younger wives -- in this case as much as 17 years younger -- in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/men_shealth/5426895/Men-live-longer-if-they-marry-a-younger-woman.html
But I can tell you that Ruben died while his far younger second wife was pregnant wit
h their fifth child, so he didn't really extend his life by marrying younger. Another famous couple we save featured at the museum was Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (26 August 1743 – 8 May 1794). In the portrait (which you can see in the Metropolitan Museum of Art) he appears with his wife whom he married when she was just 14 (according to our guide, 13 according to a website) and he was 28. (This was not considered a at all deviant at the time). However, he did not live long because he was guillotined for the crime of being a tax collector at the time of the Revolution. I know, I know, that is not a natural death. But I don't quite buy the statistics behind their conclusion either. Come to think of it, Boaz married Ruth at 80 and did not live as her husband for more than a day. Yitzchak, on the other hand, outlived his wife by many decades, though she was (according to Midrash) 37 years younger.
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