Rav Avigdor Miller on Plunging into Marriage

Q:
What advice should I give to a boy who is of age to get married but doesn’t feel ready for it?

A:
You have to tell him that he’s never going to feel ready for it, so he might as well plunge in. It’s like a man has to go to the mikveh on erev Yom Kippur and it’s freezing cold. Some mikvehs are hot but let’s say in the country, the mikveh is cold and he’s standing on the brink contemplating what to do. So give him a little friendly push on the back. Once he’s inside, he’ll enjoy it. And marriage too; it doesn’t pay to contemplate – you just have to dive in.

Once there was a rosh yeshiva who said marriage is like a pill in a capsule; a tasteless capsule. But inside, it’s a very bitter medicine. So if you swallow the capsule, it will be good; but if you start opening up the capsule and tasting what’s inside, you’ll spit it out and never swallow. And so don’t examine it too closely. Don’t examine the institution of marriage too closely and don’t examine the kallah too closely. If she comes from a frum family and she’s a frum girl, and she’s healthy, and she means business – she wants to have a lot of children, and she wants to be a housewife, not a career girl, and she wants to be frum and she shares your ideals, so dive in and Hakodosh Boruch Hu will help you. Once you start examining too much, if her nose is the right length, then you’ll never find anyone who will suit you.