I received a phone call from a reader the other week regarding my post on middle aged women suffering from eating disorders. The caller was a long married gentleman with a large family. While he in no way agreed with using unhealthy methods to lose weight, he said that based on his own observations, it’s much more likely to see frum people indulging in double portions of food, than abstaining from even a single portion.
This husband takes great pride in his wife’s youthful and trim appearance. He enjoys the fact that people mistake his wife for their daughter’s sister and that people always guess a few decades younger when trying to determine her age. In his opinion, people tend to let themselves go after marriage much more often than they become obsessive about fitness, weight, and improving their overall appearance.
With society’s current awareness of the devastating effects of eating disorders, as well as feminist outrage at women being objectified for their physical appearance, men are afraid to admit that they want attractive wives. We decry a shidduch system that imposes harsh requirements for women to be skinny and beautiful, yet at the same time, we admit that attraction must exist between marriage partners in order for the relationship to be successful.
There is a flip side to those folks who focus on their appearance in an extreme way (strict dieting, constant exercise, cosmetic procedures, expensive potions/lotions/makeup, trendy clothing). The other side of things is the stereotype of the rotund balebusta forever serving up potato kugel and kichelach to her portly husband, pasty skinned and soft from sitting behind a desk or a shtender all day – certainly not an image that would grace the cover of a romance novel. Fitness and beauty are for goyim.
The reality is that both men and women want attractive partners. Because of the taboo of married women attracting attention from other men, frum husbands can’t openly say they want a “trophy wife.” However, most men want a wife who makes them proud from a physical standpoint. Having a pretty wife is a status symbol of sorts. Who wants to be with someone that no one else will have? Many men are visual creatures and appreciate a pleasing appearance. Many men are also competitive on a variety of levels. Who their wife is, and more specifically, what she looks like, is included in that competition. Some men feel proud when they sense that other men are jealous of their wives.
This attitude is spoken of more openly in secular circles, because attraction and sexuality are more openly acknowledged. In frum circles, it’s not modest to talk of such things. Additionally, adultery is such a big taboo that a man complimenting or openly leering at a married woman would be harshly condemned. It’s also considered frivolous to focus too much on physical appearance when marriage is supposed to be based on a love much deeper than the surface (which doesn’t at all correlate with the incessant focus on appearance before marriage in the shidduch scene). Therefore, we don’t talk about what happens when we lose attraction for our spouse, when we sense no one else finds them attractive either, or when we no longer find ourselves attractive after years of cholent, babies (sympathetic pregnancies and weight gain for men – hey, it’s a real thing!), and slowing metabolisms.
I know a couple who made a promise to each other, an informal prenuptial agreement of sorts, not to let themselves go appearance wise. They stuck to that promise to the best of their abilities. The reader who called me wanted to stress the importance of attraction in a marriage, and how detrimental it can be to downplay its importance. What makes a successful marriage, after all? Really, it isn’t the number of years a couple is married, but the number of years a couple is happily married. Sustained attraction is a key ingredient for happiness. Without it, a couple might have a marriage, but not a successful one.
