Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marriageable age in Judaism


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   merge to Jewish views of marriage. There is a broad consensus to merge this article, but there is quite a bit of disagreement as to a target article. Therefore, I'm choosing a random placeholder target, but this should definitely be discussed outside of this AfD. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 01:52, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Marriageable age in Judaism

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Content fork, weak notability independent of the high level topics. The unique contents of this page are too limited to justify on its own. The information on marriageable age belongs in Jewish marriage (or a high level fork of that article into Jewish marriage customs and Jewish marriage law, though that's purely speculative) and discussion of "underage" marriages belongs in Child marriage in Judaism. Many arguments on this have been laid out on Talk:Child marriage in Judaism. If there ends up being a surplus of marriageable age information that clutters the Jewish marriage article excessively, then I would support recreating this page at that time, but right now it is fragmenting content too much for too little gain. ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 20:01, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete as nom. Adding obvious vote. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 20:17, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. It is NOT a content fork. There is no rival article. Nominator has confused the term 'content fork' with 'sub article'. Newman Luke (talk) 20:09, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. In Jewish law, a 'damsel' - who was subject to her father's control of her marriage - could be up to 35 years old, and is not necessarily 'underage', and therefore not the same thing as 'child marriage'. Newman Luke (talk) 20:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a new article, on a clearly notable topic - which the nominator above admits ("I would support recreating this page at that time...."). Its been in existence for less than 4 hours, and I really don't see what the rush to delete is. Newman Luke (talk) 20:09, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions.  —Newman Luke (talk) 20:15, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete I ask that someone corrects me if I am wrong but WP:SYNTH, WP:ESSAY, WP:OR, (perhaps WP:POV?) and per nom. Quite fascinating in fact, I don't think I've seen anything like this on WP until now. The article is based almost 100% on the Talmud which is no doubt a 100% awesome WP:RS but given the lack of a general template of 'marriageable age in ______' and the fact that virtually no outside 3rd party(?) source is used, I don't see how this can stay. --Shuki (talk) 21:50, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * comment - point of fact. The article is principally based on the Jewish Encyclopedia article Majority; the full Jewish Encyclopedia article is visible here. For future reference, its the most cited reference in the list of article references, if you'd care to check. Newman Luke (talk) 22:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this info, but for some reason, this is not convincing. I still say delete this article and do not oppose using this info elsewhere. --Shuki (talk) 19:27, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge This isn't a large enough subject to cover in it's own article. Move the material into Jewish marriage, Marriageable age, an article on "Culture of Judaism" or "Religion and marriage" like the Religion and sexuality is organized. The Marriageable age article reads just like a list and not an encyclopedic entry. The current contents could be moved to [[age of marriage by country]] and then various topics relating to the age of marriage expanded.  The marriageable age in Judaism can be moved in along with headings for other religions (Hindu and Muslim scriptures set limits on age of marriage) and specific laws, such as the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage, and Registration of Marriages or English Common Law, limiting the age of marriage.  A discussion on age of majority and age of consent relation to age of marriage should be included. Alatari (talk) 09:00, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge with Child marriage in Judaism. Bearian (talk) 22:16, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * comment. If it must be merged, it would be more logical to merge it the other way round - to merge the Child marriage in Judaism article into this article. Newman Luke (talk) 22:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge per Bearian. I don't even care under which title the merged article will reside. Both articles contain valid, notable information, and I'd hate to see any of the content lost, but there is a large overlap between the two. Owen&times; &#9742;  23:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge, remove all content that seems designed to make Judaism look backward. JFW | T@lk  22:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't believe this is intended to make Judaism look backward in any way. While more could be done to point out that the biblical laws have long since been discarded through interpretation (much like many of the other questionable rules from the Torah), this is not an indictment of the article as a whole. Judaism has a history stretching back 2000-4000 years (depending on how you define the religion; Judaism pre-70 C.E. and post-70 C.E. are very different). The fact that it had some odd rules over a thousand years ago is not an attack, it's a genuinely interesting piece of historical information. Rabbis study this sort of thing for years as part of their training, and while I'm sure anti-Semites might try and use this sort of information to prove a point, that's not sufficient justification for censorship. --ShadowRangerRIT (talk) 22:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment if it had been my intent to make Judaism look backward, I would have left out all the stuff about mi'un (annulment rights, during child marriage), and the effective suppression of it. Christian England in the 12th century had people legally having sex with 12 year olds - later even just 10 year olds; mentioning this would not be an attempt to make Christians in modern England look backward. That's just rediculous. Newman Luke (talk) 22:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge and Redirect to Jewish views of marriage. It's a valid topic but does not need an article on its own quite yet, otherwise this could lead to redundant forks like Ritual observance age in Judaism, Divorcable age in Judaism; Child rearing age in Judaism; Sexual age in Judaism or even Bachelorhood in Judaism, all interesting but not really worthy of separate articles. So one needs to stay focused and not let the topic splatter all over the place. IZAK (talk) 01:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Related comment. I think your point about leading to redundant forks fails very obviously. Marriageable age is a distinct recognised sociological/legal thing, whereas divorceable age, and child rearing age are not. In regards to sexual age, perhaps you mean age of consent? However, since Jewish rabbinic law says that sexual intercourse = betrothal, except where its adultery, I'm not sure that age of consent could ever be distinguished from marriageable age, in regards to Judaism. Newman Luke (talk) 16:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Newman: You are confusing PRACTICAL Judaism with discussions in theoretics. Do note that "Wikipedia is not a yeshiva or a theological seminary nor is it a law school" and therefore hypothetical constructs need to be very carefully handled and not be made into definitive articles in violation of WP:MADEUP. Wikipedia's focus is much more on the PRACTICE, PRACTICALITY and REALITY of Judaism, not on theoretical discussions of illegitimate pilpul. Especailly in today's day and age, none of the streams of Judaism says or accepts sexual intercourse as sufficient for "marriage" in any way -- on the contrary such behavior is forbidden and regarded by scholars of the Talmud as sexually immoral, so that therefore your article will only lead to distortions and not help with any understanidng of the practical accepted laws of Judaism and the way its practiced by ALL Jews who observe Judaism TODAY and for the last few centuries. Therefore you are way off balance here because the notion of a "marriageable age" in Judaism has NOTHING to do with normative Judaism today. Yes, there are many HYPOTHETICAL and THEORETICAL notions posed and tossed about in the Talmud and Torah, many sounding radical, but they are not practiced by any stream of modern-day Judaism in any way shape size or form. Once upon a time Jews rode camels in the Middle East like everybody else, and just as in surrounding societies females were married off by their parents at young ages, so it's no news to focus on Jews in this regard when you can do it with ANY group. But the way you are going about presenting this material, and other topics of controversy in violation of WP:NOR makes it very evident that you have more in mind than just the raw topic while skating on thin ice when it comes to violating WP:LIBEL. To illustrate my point, ask yourself how many articles are there about Marriageable age in Islam; Marriageable age in Hinduism; Marriageable age in atheism; Marriageable age in Christianity; Marriageable age in Shintoism etc etc etc ad absurdum? Think it over. IZAK (talk) 03:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It was my proposal above to create a section on marriageable age topic on Hinduism, Islam, various laws around the world and through history IN the Marriageable age article. As it stands now it's just a list of ages by country which could be moved to an article marriageable age by country. I'm surprised this topic hasn't been covered in Wikipedia across religions, societies, common law and history.  I make no claims to anyone's motivations.  It seems noteworthy and an interesting subject to archaeologists, sociologists and anthropologists.  Alatari (talk) 09:06, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a How-to guide. Therefore it is NOT focused primarily on the Practice, Practicality, and Reality. On the other hand Wikipedia content should encompass not only what motivates individuals who hold these beliefs and practices, but also account how such beliefs and practices developed. Wikipedia articles on history and religion draw from a religion's sacred texts as well as from modern archaeological, historical, and scientific sources - see WP:RNPOV. If there are notions tossed about in the Talmud and Torah, they are worth noting - an article wouldn't be encyclopedic without mentioning them. Indeed Jews used to ride camels. But that's worth noting in wikipedia. Perhaps you want to claim that Jewish practices given in the talmud are copied from arabic /middle eastern culture, but that's really not an neutral thing to say, and its an extremely controversial viewpoint, which I'm fairly sure most Orthodox Jews would disagree with. It may be that marriageable age is not normative today. But to mention that in an article you need a reliable source that claims this is the case for all Jews everywhere, not just Orthodox Jews in America, the UK, and Israel, but also Jews of all denominations, in all parts of the world, including the Cochin Jews still in Cochin, the Yemenite Jews still in Yemen, etc. Have you got such a source? If so, there's nothing stopping you from adding it to the article in an appropriate location, if not, stop making opinionated claims. Claiming that a 19th century Jewish Encyclopedia - the Jewish Encyclopedia in fact - is libellous to modern Judaism is really going a bit far. As for articles about other religions, do you have sources? The reason I haven't added anything about Marriageable age in Hinduism, in Christianity, in Islam, is because the Jewish Encyclopedia, which I was using as the source, does not mention them - if you can find a source there's nothing stopping you from creating these articles. Don't hope the house will build itself, and don't expect me to add material that I don't have a source for.Newman Luke (talk) 10:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Newman, all this is marvelous, however on balance, when looking at the totality and direction of your editing and article-creation you definitely seem to be veering into controversy that will lead to edit warring as has happened a few times already. You constantly fail to seek WP:CONSENSUS when it is obviuous you know that your slash and burn editing will make other editors anxious and take you to task as has happened a few times already. You need to take WP:CHILL and not come with your editorial scalpel to demolish and de-construct by revising in your WP:POV way what has been built up over many years through careful editing. No one objects to the sources you cite, it is how you are going about matters that is raising alarm bells all over the place with responsible Judaic editors. I am not arguing with your sources, but I am saying that the way you cut and chop and run roughshod over key topics in Judaism articles leaves much to be desired as anyone reviewing your edit history and the ensuing talks with Judaic editors shows. Am I starting to make myself clearer? IZAK (talk) 20:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * That is an appalling, and unwiki-like attitude to take. Wikipedia is NOT the personal fifedom of Judaic editors - a group of people that you appear to suggest includes yourself. It is not for such people to determine who is or isn't responsible. Wikipedia is not ruled by a cabal. Judaic editors (whatever that might mean) cannot dictate anything to the rest of us (whoever that might mean).
 * My editorial scalpel has edited articles that did not previously exist. There is no circumstance under which that could legitimately be called demoli[tion] or de-construct[ion] or revising. Neither can the creation of new articles be legitimately considered cut[ting] or chop[ping] or run[ning] roughshod over key topics. Please show good faith, and stop throwing libellous accusations around.
 * As for edit warring. I think you'll find that was a dispute over the legitimacy of a copyvio accusation, which was resolved - amicably, I might add - when a third party pointed out to the other editor that the source was public domain (due to its age), the other editor admitting fault.
 * And I really don't know what you are on about when you talk about what has been built up over many years by careful editing. You make it sound like some glass house of cards, too delicate to be touched by mortal hands. Or perhaps you mean that its just the way you like it, and you don't want anyone to change that. But wikipedia is a work in progress it is not finished.  You don't own the articles, nor do you have any right to claim ownership.
 * If anything it is you who need to take WP:CHILL. There was no heat until you started bandying accusations around against me. It is you who constantly fail to show good faith, or civility. I ask you to show some. There are, after all, sanctions that can be made against people who consistently fail to show good faith or civility. Perhaps you'd best go and have a cup of tea and a sit down before engaging with me again.
 * Newman Luke (talk) 02:23, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge this article into the other relevant articles as fit. Debresser (talk) 05:45, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - so far, those wanting to merge it have proposed various alternatives:
 * into Jewish views of marriage. The problem with this is space. Although the article there is currently a reasonable size, and has unnecessary depth about the get (as this already has a sub article), there is a large amount of coverage missing (eg. divorce rights (apart from get and agunah), rules for remarriage, forbidden relationships - incest, mamzers, rules for priests, etc. -, polygyny vs. monogamy, and coverage of actual views about marriage as a thing; the latter being what the title of the article suggests it should contain more than anything. See Talk:Child marriage in Judaism for details). There basically won't be room in the long term at this article for sufficient depth about marriageable age.
 * into Child marriage in Judaism. There is a certain logic to this. However, it would be an awkward fit for material about rabbinic attitudes to age disparity in adult-adult marriage, or about pressure into getting married before the age of 20 ('adult' roughly being the age of 13 and over), and penalties, such as having your penis chopped off (a single Talmudic opinion proposes this), if you don't. It would also be an awkward fit for historic statistics about popular ages for Jews to get married.
 * into Marriageable age, having first moved most of the content currently at that article into List of marriageable age by country (or similar). This is a fairly reasonable suggestion. However, at the moment if this was done the Marriageable age article would be almost entirely about Judaism. I understand another user is currently gathering sources about other religions, but there just isn't any content at present about them.
 * Newman Luke (talk) 16:30, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I have sources for Hinduism and Islam and the UN laws are allready in Wikipedia. There are people in the Islam and Hindu projects I'll send my edits to.  Alatari (talk) 09:11, 15 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep and expand. (  merge into Child marriage in Judaism, which is about the same topic.  The material in the article is relevant, and there;'s a lot more subsequent discussion to add over the centuries. The idea that there writing =of this article shows a focus on  I totally disagree with IZAK that "Wikipedia's focus is much more on the PRACTICE, PRACTICALITY and REALITY of Judaism, " -- Wikipedia deals with both current and historical aspects, and just like in other subjects is in fact not to be used as a guide to the practice of religion--not that  I can imagine any actual religious Jew in any tradition doing so.  The age of marriage and other marriage laws in early Judaism are ,not surprisingly, not dissimilar to other traditions of the period and culture areas. The idea that we would " remove all content that seems designed to make Judaism look backward" is absurd--we simply rewrite to NPOV--Judaism's long history of    continuing reinterpretation of its historic texts is  one of the most fascinating things about the religion.  Not that this article is such--I find it incredible that an explanation of its secondary sourcing should be brushed off so quickly.  The various suggestions for merging will decrease the content of the article, and are going the the opposite direction entirely. Any one who wants to know my own religious views can ask me privately, but I am quite disturbed at the various attempts to decrease the detailed coverage of material on the traditional parts of this and other religions.    DGG ( talk ) 06:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * DGG, you are latching on to some of my later observations and discussions and missing the fact that I voted to "Keep" this article but by merging it with the main article about Judaism and marriage at Jewish views of marriage. No matter how you slice it, the basic point remains that there is good reason to apply to this article Merge and Redirect to Jewish views of marriage otherwise it's just a blatant fork. I am NOT saying to delete it, it's just not strong enough to stand on its own, asside from its tendentious and suspicious set up (meaning with an obvious undertone of hostility to Torah Judaism). In addition it was highly controversial to spin off the article from its original moorings at Age of majority in Judaism when there should have been more discussion in violation of WP:CONSENSUS. These kinds of moves by only breed suspicioun and create the kind of atmosphere you see taking shape here. No one is afraid of writing up articles about any aspect of Judaism, but a style of writing and editing that is subversive and meant to show Judaism in a negative or abhorant light should be opposed for obvious reasons. IZAK (talk) 07:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It's obviously escaped your notice that I wrote Age of majority in Judaism. I span it off because age of majority is not the same thing as marriageable age. You will note that no-one else had edited Age of majority in Judaism (besides correcting a couple of typos, and adjusting the capitalisation of the article title) before I did this. You don't need consensus to change an article you've only just created and no-one else has edited. To view the extraction as being a violation of consensus and having subversive intent is really quite distrustful. Newman Luke (talk) 09:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Note for closing admins. IZAK has highlighted the phrase merge and redirect in two distinct places in this AfD. Newman Luke (talk) 09:41, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Newman, the admins are not retarded, they can see that I was using a reference in my response to User:DGG, please do not be obtuse. I have watched your editing and said nothing to you for close to a year so you cannot now claim that I doubt your so-called "good faith" efforts. But now matters have reached critical mass as you reveal your hand and agenda with your latest batch of creations (three nominated for deletion, and not by me) that have not just me but many other editors up in arms about what the heck your real goal is exactly with all the articles pertaining to Judaism that are making people cringe and want to delete them. Come clean. Do you want to destroy everything and just plop down your revisionist and seemingly abhorant veiws of Judaism and especially of Orthodox and Torah Judaism (based on your own admissions on your talk page) as you go about creating and editing articles that ONLY seems to focus on negative and distateful features of Judaism? Have you thought of creating positive articles for a change about Music by teenagers in Judaism or Poetry by Jewish women or how about proving your bona fides by creating something like Israeli Jewish children and not just the slash and burn attitude you favor? You know, once the imagination runs wild it can be used creatively and not just destructively. IZAK (talk) 20:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Izak, I believe I did give the argument against merging into an overgeneral article, but I have altered my !vote upon a check of the Child Marriage in Judaism article, which is after all superior to the present one.   The details of what constitutes a Jewish marriage are the subject of several tractates of the Talmud, and the various factors are appropriate for   separate consideration. I think  the motivation of the author quite irrelevant to the consideration of whether than can be a Wikipedia article based on the subject. The ed.who started it is openly not sympathetic to Orthodox Judaism; you openly are supportive of it;  We write articles not from a basis of either hostility of sympathy.    I do not find the subject intrinsically either negative or distasteful; it is true that those who do not understand the history of the religion could so consider it, but the answer is not to suppress discussion of it but to present it properly.       DGG ( talk ) 06:04, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Izak, does Judaism have something specific to itself to say about music by teenagers? As far as I'm aware it does not. Do Jewish women intrinsically write poetry in a way that differs from other people? I think not, indeed the claim would be pure bigotry. Is there something different about Israeli Jewish children than other Jewish children and other Israelis, or other Israeli children and other Jews? I think the answer is probably no. You are showing bad faith by even suggesting it. On the other hand there is something distinct about marriageable age in Judaism. Newman Luke (talk) 02:33, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge with Age of majority in Judaism. --Whoosit (talk) 23:54, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I accept this as a reasonable


 * Keep. Basically, I agree with Newman Luke's very first comment. Notability has already been established with legitimate sources, and it seems as if there is room for it to grow in the future. And the AFD was proposed within mere hours of the article being made, which is a blatant violation of Give an article a chance. —  Hunter   Kahn  ( c )  16:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * An immediate AfD is my experience in working on new articles. Part of the creation/deletion forces at work on our GREAT WORK! Alatari (talk) 09:17, 15 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge with Age of majority in Judaism. Do not merge with  Jewish views of marriage, which is a better focus, a better length and a better shape as it is, without the detail contained in this article, which should be preserved somewhere in Wikipedia but not there. Jheald (talk) 09:26, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge and Redirect to Jewish views of marriage; this info. logically belongs there. Yehoishophot Oliver (talk) 11:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge into Jewish views of marriage together with Child Marriage in Judaism which is nominated elsewhere on Afd. The subject of "marriageable age" is in itself notable, as can be seen in Marriageable age, but there is no reason to have a whole article on this subject, especially since it largely about child marriage, which has its own article Child Marriage in Judaism. Just take care that the merge be executed by somebody knowledgable and serious. If needed, approach me. Debresser (talk) 11:46, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge. Merge with one of the other articles, either Age of Majority or Child Marriage.  I'm sure someone can figure out an intelligent plan. (Maybe best to resist the urge to push it into the main Jewish Marriage article, simply because that article will just get too long. ) Good luck. —Dfass (talk) 11:49, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge to Jewish views of marriage' where the content of this article would be placed in appropriate context. Alansohn (talk) 13:37, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge Merge and Redirect to Jewish views of marriage. All of these subarticles should be merged into appropriate sections, with appropriate weightings, into the parent article. Avi (talk) 15:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.