Will the common form of marriage proposals be coming to an end in the religious Jewish community?
While a marriage proposal is really just one person asking another if he or she will agree to marry, the proposal is often performed in an emotional, and often romantic setting and with all sorts of accompanying scenes. It also commonly includes the potential groom taking out a ring and asking the potential bride "will you marry me?", and then giving her the ring, or even putting it on her finger. Nowdays it is even common to do this in front of friends, with the friends documenting the event on video and sometimes assisting in setting the tone for the proposal.
In recent months a number of rabbis have brought questions about this to the Chief Rabbi, Rav Yitzchak Yosef, asking if this is ok as it seems to be an actual wedding - will you marry me with the giving of a ring and often witnesses seems an awful lot like an actual wedding.
Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef responded that this is completely prohibited and effects a possibility of issurim of "eishes ish" - a married woman. Rav Yosef called for this bad custom and behavior to be stopped. In addition to the problem of potential eishes ish, it is a breach of tzniyus and a break from the way things were traditionally done in previous generations.
source: Kikar
If this effects an actual marriage, even though that is not the intention and everyone knows it, if they decide to split up they would require a gett. Without a gett but with a breakup, when she marries someone else that might violate the serious erva of eishes ish.
This is not an unreasonable psak and is logical, especially considering how the proposals are often done. In the religious community the ring is often given later and not at the proposal, so that might mitigate the problem in such situations. When the ring is given at the proposal, that might be an actual problem, but people have been doing it this way for so long even if it was not done that way in Poland and Morocco 150 years ago so this is not a new problem and yet the public has continued to do this and the rabbonim have not intervened.
I do not know why it is allowed - perhaps due to the known intentions of it being an engagement and not a wedding. I know some rabbis say it is not a problem, some prefer you propose without a ring and only give the ring later, some say even with a ring is ok but say explicitly it is a gift and not for marriage, and some say if done without witnesses it is no problem...
Anyways, if Rav Yosef's psak takes off, it would be major..
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