Off topic, but this is one of the reasons I would recommend that most people should own some physical silver (and to a lesser extent gold).
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Marriage doesn't have to be....
- Thread starter Maddog
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Well, the thought has crossed my mind,To buy wives with as the economy crashes and their fathers become in need of cash?
but mainly I was just thinking of diversifying one's investments with tangibles.
Sorry; it's just a matter of failure to recognize the trends that would justify a bride price as high as $30K, much less $80K for anyone this side of Jennifer Anniston. The marriage/sexual marketplace has such an overabundance of women that, if anything, women in general need to start coughing up some significant husband prices.
You give me a 20 year old Christian virgin Jennifer Aniston equivalent with basic homemaking skills (and without the apparent infertility) and I'd pay $100k in a heartbeat, but that doesn't seem likely!
I mentioned the Japanese bride price system. Not everyone does that. It's done among the more traditional people. It's also not quite the same as a bride price.
Typically the groom gives the money to the bride's parents. The parents then take that money and buy stuff they think the newlyweds will need or want for their new life together. This could be a new car, furniture, appliances, etc. You give it to them and then they basically give it back to you in a different form.
Basically I think it serves to indicate that the groom is able to provide for the bride.
If we don't use the scriptural value we would not be following it. Think of Solomon's day, silver was as common as rocks. Did we see any increase in the bride price? Not prescribed biblically that I know of. Yah knew what He was doing and what silver would be worth today, we just follow lol.Putting that further in perspective, the temple tax was a half-shekel per man, which on that crude working would be about 5 days minimum-wage wages. Per year. If only modern taxes were so low!
And back to bride-prices, what I suppose I'm saying is that a bride price was somewhere between $800 and $80,000 in todays money, depending on how you do the maths. I'm not sure if that is quite the level of precision you were looking for in an answer @Hisdaughter.
Personally, I might go higher than $80K for Jennifer Anniston, infertile or not, and have no expectation of her being a virgin.You give me a 20 year old Christian virgin Jennifer Aniston equivalent with basic homemaking skills (and without the apparent infertility) and I'd pay $100k in a heartbeat, but that doesn't seem likely!
When you add basic homemaking skills, age 20 and fertility to the near-physical-perfection of Jennifer Anniston, that's a completely different calculus. Such a woman could require a very high bride price, but that's about as relevant a consideration in a discussion like this as would be putting a bride price on Jessica Rabbit. Perhaps academically interesting, but it has zip to do with real life. Men finding mates who actually want to find mates aren't wasting their time considering what it might be like to be with Jessica Rabbit or a 20-year-old fertile domestic Jennifer Anniston.
And then there's the virgin requirement. These days, statistically, you might have to provide not only an incentive like $100K to get 95% of girls to save their virginity to age 20 -- you'd have to provide guarantees that being virgins at 20 would get them not only the $100K but marriage to a good-looking top earner. Lots of young men -- in fact, increasing numbers of young men -- are virgins at 20, but the pool of young women who make it that long continues to shrink, and, while all of us can probably come up with anecdotal evidence that says some of those virgin girls are nice, wholesome believers, the vast majority of modern young virgins are both physically unattractive and highly socially awkward. Our world has removed almost all of the incentives for girls to remain virgins until 20, and they are surrounded by much-more-tempting incentives among their peers to give it up early.
I've written this before: I do 100% understand the attraction behind seeking virgins in the single-man crowd; I even understand it among so many of my brothers here on Biblical Families, but actually accomplishing finding one who will be an eager participant in polygyny is probably close to that of finding beachfront property in Kansas. My suspicion is that the only way that a middle-aged man marrying a young virgin could ever be accomplished outside of contacting the Mexican cartel for assistance would be to have the foresight at the time of marrying his first wife at age 25 or under to simultaneously make arrangements with the father of a newborn girl for an arranged marriage to go into effect when she became 18, contingent upon both her reaching adulthood with intact virginity and not being of a mind to refuse to participate by then -- because in that kind of situation, the parents would be incentivized to mold their daughter into being prepared to be a fertile, virgin helpmeet.
Shy of that, you're just whistling Dixie. Unfortunately for most of us, if we can just find that one story on the internet of a 55-year-old polygamist who married an 18-year-old virgin, we think we still have hope on our side.
Because people want to change what God actually requires, they make all sorts of additions and subtractions to what Scripture says. It started in the Garden and was 100% successful there so Satan hasn't changed tactics.
@FollowingHim has asked me to keep my eyes open for one for him but he wants one that is also an orphan. If I find one that's not an orphan, maybe I'll put her in contact with you(?)
I am touched by your offer, Frederick, but you should put me at the end of the line for virgins. I'm decidedly not seeking them (and I moved past age 55 a dozen years ago). Of my four licensed marriages, one was a virgin when we started our relationship, and her virginity was far from being what drew me to her. Of my other relationships that would qualify in the eyes of Yah as TTWCM, not one was a virgin. That I'm not enamored of virginity stacked things in my favor even as far back as the 1970s when I lost mine; the odds have only worsened since then for those who prefer or expect that type of purity.@FollowingHim has asked me to keep my eyes open for one for him but he wants one that is also an orphan. If I find one that's not an orphan, maybe I'll put her in contact with you(?)
Widows and their (due to now lack of father) orphans I welcome. I'm also game for women with mental health challenges and/or many types of criminal records, so if you know any such women who are prepared to share, to be respectfully cooperative and to let me discipline their rugrats -- and you don't think your wheelhouse has room for them -- please feel free to refer them to me, but (a) I'm currently not looking, and (b) if they're virgins (especially if they're also single moms) please first make sure they're really unwilling to move to New Zealand.
@FollowingHim has asked me to keep my eyes open for one for him but he wants one that is also an orphan. If I find one that's not an orphan, maybe I'll put her in contact with you(?)
Thankyou @Keith Martin, for once we agree 100%.
I can pull together 50 shekels of silver @frederick, if that's all they're asking I'll throw in a bit extra for you as a commission.
I can see the $$$.Thankyou @Keith Martin, for once we agree 100%.
I had to laugh at that. Mostly because a friend of mine had a sister get pregnant out of wedlock. The girl's mother HAD to tell everyone it was a miracle baby. They didn't actually have sex. I remember thinking....if'n she's gonna have a baby....she SHOULD HAVE!!!
Sheesh!
You take my joking quest for a young virgin Jennifer Aniston a bit too seriously. We all know full well that isn't even.close our expectation. You are the one who brought up Jennifer Aniston, so I thought let's shoot for the stars while we are at it.
Maybe I could hope for a God fearing widow in her early thirties? Even that would would be a miracle.
If the fifty shekels is all I need for a bride price I'm good to go.
In the Torah, the specific number of fifty shekels was only mentioned in the context of the man that seduced a virgin not betrothed, correct?
Do you take that to mean that fifty was always the number, or had to always be the number? I don't think that was said.
In the Torah, the specific number of fifty shekels was only mentioned in the context of the man that seduced a virgin not betrothed, correct?
Do you take that to mean that fifty was always the number, or had to always be the number? I don't think that was said.
Actually I'm not good to go. I have no actual literal shekels. I have one ounce coins, bars, rounds, junk silver, etc but no shekels.
It's a weight, not a coin. You're all good!Actually I'm not good to go. I have no actual literal shekels. I have one ounce coins, bars, rounds, junk silver, etc but no shekels.
Actually I'm not good to go. I have no actual literal shekels. I have one ounce coins, bars, rounds, junk silver, etc but no shekels.
So how many 18 year old orphan virgins are on order...?
That was in the case of rape it was 50 shekels. For seducing, you must endow her, if he refuses to give her you then must pay the virgin bride price. Historically this was 30 shekels I believe.