Question:
Is it true that traditionally, Jewish marriages were arranged marriages? I've
also heard that it's still practiced amongst the more religious Jews. Does
Judaism mandate or legitimize this practice?
Answer:
If arranged means coerced -- no. It is true that in most ancient and many
existing cultures marriages were and are arranged, and the young lady (and
sometimes the young man) has no say in this choice of her/his marriage partner.
However, Torah law and Jewish custom have always frowned upon this practice,
even in ancient times.
In fact, the opposition to coerced marriages was prevalent in Abraham's
family even before Judaism. We find in the Torah's account of Isaac's marriage
(Genesis 24), that when Abraham's servant Eliezer proposes to take Rebecca back
to Canaan to marry Isaac, he is told by Rebecca's family (Abraham's cousins who
were not into his new religion): "Let us ask the maiden." From here
the Sages derive that no one may be married against their choice. This indeed
has always been the practice within the Jewish community since its inception.
As far as how the prospective bride and groom are introduced so that they can
decide whether they do indeed wish to marry each other, certainly the shadchan ("matchmaker") has always played a major role in Jewish marriages.
(There are professional shadchanim, but usually it's a friend of the family who
knows someone who knows a seemly candidate, etc.)
The shadchan method has proven to be the most effective way to find a
marriage partner. One starts off meeting someone who is at least somewhat
compatible rather than meeting people at random. As a matter of a fact, many
thoroughly modern Jewish singles have discovered that the random roll-the-dice
approach isn't finding them a mate and have returned to the traditional shadchan model.
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