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There’s no need for concern over whether it is “right” or “appropriate” seeking out a matchmaker. That is, we singles in the twenty-first century are not unique—matchmaking has been going on for much longer than we have been breathing. While the use of a dating matchmaker online might be a modern construct, the marital matchmaker is not novel (and surely not unusual to many if not most cultures and subcultures. In general, ancient traditions—going back thousands of years--lent themselves to the employment of a matchmaker, one who would (indirectly) ensure the continuation of the clanship, the family bloodline, and the perpetuation of values—be they religious, social, or political. More specifically, the people of a smaller, more isolated community, who were of a particular culture and who maintained a particular faith and belief system, used matchmakers. These groups also obeyed certain social regulations and expectations that were honored and continued by using a chosen (and reputed) matchmaker. Again, the practice was primarily to perpetuate social cohesion of a revered nature and quality. In early days in Ireland, for instance, the matchmakers were horse dealers (!): they would not check the teeth of the intended, no, but they were significant to the marrying process as they had close and working knowledge of the farmers and landowners in the areas in which they dealt, and were thereby authorized to bring together landowners’ children with other landowners’ sons and/or daughters (individual who might not otherwise ever meet). This practice ensured the class distinction would continue as a proud one.
While the Irish matchmaking practice is history, matchmakers still thrive in other cultures today. For example, for the Hindus, a matchmaker is still revered, is still imperative (with a smaller percentage of Hindus dating or marrying outside their “tribe”. Dating, for them, is actually less a means to an end than marriage is, so they recruit a wise one, a guru or astrologer, to go through a ritual of matching the horoscopes of a man and a woman, in addition to his or her calculating the compatibility of status, moral character, and fame (or success). Once the success of a match is agreed upon, the two families of the pair meet to make a Kasamdary (a commitment), which is a formal agreement to follow through with the marriage preparations and joining of souls. Possibly less frequent but just as important is the use of a matchmaker in the Jewish culture: a shadchan (a matchmaker) will be commissioned to consider and evaluate the faiths, practices, locales, moral fortitude, and class distinctions of a man and a woman—to make a match, a shidach. The shadcan is paid a substantial sum for her efforts, for doing what is considered in the faith to be her avodas ha’kodesh (holy work); her job commences with the union of basherts (soul mates). Today, then, not only have we retained such purist traditions but we have resuscitated or adopted them where they did not technically exist before. So the matchmaker practice, should you feel you are resorting to one, need not be embarrassing, but to the contrary, something you can trust in and be proud of.