Eliezer, the servant of Avraham, was sent to find Yitzchak a wife in this week’s Torah portion of Chaye Sarah. With clear signs from Heaven, he found Rivka and negotiated with her household for her to go to Eretz Canaan to be married to Yitzchak.
The Torah relates, “They ate and drank, he [Eliezer] and the men who were with him, and they spent the night; when they arose next morning he said, ‘Send me to my master.’ Her brother [Lavan] and mother said, ‘Let the maiden remain with us a year or ten [months]; then she will go.’ He said to them, ‘Do not delay me now that Hashem had made my journey successful. Send me, and I will go to my master.’ And they said, ‘Let us call the maiden and ask her decision.’ They called Rivka and said to her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ And she said ‘I will go'” (Breishis 24:54-58).
The Rashbam says that Eliezer was telling them that “Hashem doesn’t want him to delay because the main success in the matter would not happen if delayed. However, the family called in Rivka for her to make the decision “if she wants to stay for a year or ten months as they said or leave immediately like you say.” The Rashbam points out that “it was derech eretz, proper manners, meaning, even though Hashem wants this shidduch, match, nevertheless the question should still be asked to her if she wants to leave now with this man or go with someone else a year or ten months later. And also even though it was a minhag, tradition, back then, to give her 12 months to prepare herself for marriage as we see in Kesubos 57a, [still proper thing is to first ask her.] And she said she wanted to go, “she wasn’t concerned that she should stay just in order to adorn herself.” (Click here for Hebrew text.)
Besides the gemara in Kesubos, we see in Megilas Esther that there was a real custom for women to prepare themselves for a whole year before marriage, as it says, “Now when each girl’s turn arrived to come to King Achashveirosh, after being treated according to the manner prescribed for women for 12 months, for so was the prescribed length of their anointing accomplished: six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with perfume and cosmetics” (Esther 2:12). We see from here how serious of a matter it was on the side of Rivka’s family for the girl to prepare herself for a whole year before marriage, as the Rashbam points out. On the other hand, Eliezer had clear signs from Heaven that Rivka was the right match for Yitzchak, and as the Rashbam says, to ensure complete success, the best thing to do is to act quickly and take her along to finish doing Hashem’s will and the will of his master, Avraham Avinu. That too is a very competent and worthwhile reason, on Eliezer’s side. They are the ones in charge; they are the mature adults in the room; couldn’t they have negotiated a decision among each other? What is derech eretz, the proper manners, in this case and why does it make a difference to ask the young girl, Rivka, what she wants, if they know best?
We see from here that it’s derech eretz, basic manners, to ask the person involved what he or she would want, at least when both sides of the question are relatively equal. I also assume each side let her clearly know her two choices. Proper manners is so important, to the extent that even if either side might be more informed and are really in charge, still in all the right thing to do is to ask what the involved wants.
A very basic application of this comes out that it’s proper manners for political leaders to ask their constituents, who voted for them, what they want. Even if they were elected to lead and might even have more firsthand knowledge of the matter at hand, but it’s basic derech eretz to ask the constituents what’s in their best interests