“Today, if you look at the girls who graduated five years ago, there are probably thirty girls who are not yet married.
Some biographical details have been altered to hide their identities.] Yes, she told me, the ratios are lopsided. “They wait for the next, more perfect woman,” grumbled Bowman, a veterinarian in San Diego.
Premarital sex remains taboo for Mormons, but the shortage of Mormon men was pushing some women over the brink.
I called back to thank him but explained I was busy writing a book.
He asked what the book was about, and I wound up telling him about the Mormon marriage crisis.
I wanted to show that god-fearing folks steeped in old-fashioned values are just as susceptible to the effects of shifting sex ratios as cosmopolitan, hookup-happy 20-somethings who frequent Upper East Side wine bars. One of my web searches turned up a study from Trinity College’s American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) on the demographics of Mormons.
