How we cite our quotes: Story Number.Paragraph
Quote #7
"Reb Tevye! What would you say if I told you that I love your Shprintze and want to take her as my wife?" […]
"Certainly you have to ask your mother, and your mother will surely tell you that you're an idiot, and she will be right. […] She will be right because what kind of husband are you for my Shprintze? How is she your equal? And most important," I said, "what have I to do with your mother?" (7.57-68)
Marriage isn't just two individuals getting together—it's two families getting together. For Tevye, that means all of them have to match on some level. (Anyone with in-laws can see the point of this.)
Quote #8
You should have seen [Beilke] at her wedding—a princess! I glowed with pride and marveled. Was this really Beilke, Tevye's daughter? Where had she learned to stand like that, to walk like that, and to hold her head and to dress as if she had been poured into her clothes? (8.53)
Compare this to Shprintze and the whole sad business of her not being considered good enough to marry into Ahronchik's family. What's different here? Because the groom is independent? Because Beilke herself is somehow different from the rest of her family?
Quote #9
[Beilke] laid out for me a tale, a story worthy of A Thousand and One Nights, about how her Podhotsur became rich after being a nobody. He drew from the lowest of the low and with his own ability reached the highest levels and now wanted to invite to his house people like Brodsky. […] Money wasn't enough—you still needed a pedigree, power, influence, and status. Podhotsur was doing everything possible to show he was somebody. He bragged that he came from the famous Podhotsurs, his father was also a famous contractor. But "he knew very well that he was a street musician," Beilke said. "Now he tells everyone that his wife's father is a millionaire." (8.112)
There's a couple of ways to take this little allusion to A Thousand and One Nights. (1) Podhotsur has some Aladdin in him, what with the coming from nothing and ending up powerful and rich. (2) Tevye is a bit like Scheherazade, what with constantly plying Sholem Aleichem to keep him interested. Now, granted, it's not like Sholem Aleichem has promised to kill Tevye if the stories stop coming (which is Scheherazade's whole deal with the king)—but in a way, if the stories stop coming, Tevye stops being in print, which is certainly a kind of death. You know, sort of.