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Somebody apparently added me to a Facebook group called “LDS Doctrines, Questions, and Insights.” This is not a Bloggernacle type of group, but a very mainstream one (it has 14,000 members). I haven’t paid much attention to it, but I noticed a long thread discussing this question: “Why we the single members of the Church find it difficult to get a partner to marry?”

There were almost 200 responses, many of which fell into the following categories:

Women encouraged to reject men who haven’t served missions.

Too many don’t even try to date.

Issues of attraction.

Issues of standards.

Some enjoy the freedom of being single.

Too focused on finding “the one.”

Seeking perfection (even when you’re not perfect yourself).

No sex before marriage an impediment.

Many too picky.

There is certainly truth there, and I encourage you to add your own perspectives to the question.

But before we drill down into these kinds of issues too far, I think it might be helpful first to consider the bigger picture: this is largely a problem of demographics.

We like to crow that we’re a church of 15 million (or maybe even more these days). But that’s just a paper number, and includes many people who would be surprised our system considers them members of our church. The number of self-identifying, practicing Mormons is a fraction of that figure. We’re a worldwide church, but our numbers are relatively small.

And we have a culture that favors early marriage. So when the music stops, if you haven’t sat down already there just might not be a seat left for you.

My dad used to say something like “We have some of the finest universities in the world right here in Illinois. I’m sending you to BYU to get married.” I used to hate it when he said that, although in my case it actually worked–I did get married at BYU (to a convert to the Church–from Illinois).

The Church is pretty well represented in the intermountain west. But what if you don’t live there? With so many marrying early and off the market and membership so sparse in other areas, the demographics almost by definition are going to be very challenging.

Not only are the pure numbers an impediment, but we have a serious case of gender imbalance that makes this a particularly difficult feat for LDS women to achieve. It’s not unusual for singles wards, even in Utah, to have double the number of women as men. This is largely from men being more likely to drop out as they transition to adulthood, and women being (generally) more devout. So a dreary situation is made much worse by a severe gender imbalance in our singles population.

I think understanding these basic demographic facts is essential to appreciating the challenge involved in seeking a marriage within the faith.

So what can one do to goose up the odds a bit? I have a few ideas (see below), but solicit yours (in the comments) as well:

You’re going to have to overcome the geographic dispersion somehow. The Church does what it can to help by sponsoring singles wards and activities, but that may not be enough. For singles in the Midwest, it’s not unusual to travel two or even three states away to attend singles conferences. That’s simply the price some are willing to pay to meet other available singles.

Another way to conquer the geography is to use online dating websites. I assume that can be a soul-crushing experience, but plenty of people have actually found spouses that way.

You also need to leverage your contacts. You live in one spot, but you have LDS friends all over the place; perhaps someone might be able to point you in the right direction.

What other thoughts do you have for how to overcome the very challenging demographic obstacles to dating and marrying within the faith?

ADDENDUM:

My apologies for framing the end of the post as (simplistic) marriage advice that those in the trenches surely do not need. After reading 200 comments from frustrated Mormon singles I thought some perspective on the demographic factors in play might provide a bigger picture. I was thinking specifically of this Time article comparing the demographic trends in Mormonism and the Orthodox Jewish community, both socially conservative religious groups that find themselves with substantially more unmarried women than men. In my head I was thinking that everyone was already familiar with it, but I can see now that that was a mistake and I should have affirmatively cited it to explain the angle I was trying to come from. The “advice” at the end was focused exclusively on the demographics, not the skewed female to male ratio (I don’t know what we can do about that; ideas welcome!) but the long distances between singles due to our small numbers in relation to the populations in which we find ourselves. But as I reread it now I can see it comes across as just utterly lame dating advice. Mea culpa.