Another good reason…

… for the LDS church to pay some attention to interfaith marriages. The current gender ratio in the church is 44% men & 56% women. That means 12% of the church’s membership and 21% of the church’s women have no chance of marrying in the temple unless more men are converted. That’s over 1 in 5 Mormon women. And sorry ladies, but you have a lower chance of converting a male partner to the faith than a man has of converting a woman, though some women are successful in converting their non-member spouses (Hai Eric!).
As I see it, the church either needs to get busy embracing interfaith marriages or return to polygamy. Well, “embrace” might be the wrong word. I don’t want to see interfaith marriages openly encouraged, but it sure would be nice to see less stigma attached to them.
For comparison, here’s what Pew says about some other well-known Christian traditions:
Evangelical Protestants – 47% Men – 53% Women
Mainline Churches – 46% Men – 54% Women
Catholics – 46% Men – 54% Women
Orthodox – 46% Men – 54% Women
Historically Black – 40% Men – 60% Women
Jehovah’s Witnesses – 40% Men – 60% Women
I guess I should apologize at this point for stealing one of your worthy male priesthood holders when there are so many needy Mormon women out there, but what can I say. Have you seen how hot he is?
(Note: I pray that I did the statistics in the opening paragraph right. If I got them wrong, and you are a stats buff, please, please feel free to correct me.)

Comments

Another good reason… — 14 Comments

  1. The funny thing is that there probably are some Mormon guys who see it as a sign that God will be bringing back polygamy soon.
  2. I used to talk online with a guy who was the leader of a polygamous Christian group. He called it “evangelical,” but he was ex-Mormon and his group had started out as an LDS splinter group and gradually dropped its beliefs in Joseph Smith as prophet and the Book of Mormon. They still had a lot of other beliefs in common with Mormonism.
    He had some kind of bogus statistic about how there were so many more women than men participating in organized religion that the ratio of women to men was 7:1—in fulfillment of Isaiah 4:1. DUN DUN DUN!
    Too bad it’s not true. More women than men participating in organized religion, probably, but certainly not 7:1. We’re a long ways away from that.
  3. When I shared this article with my husband, he explained to me that because of this, it’s actually not required that women have a celestial marriage for exaltation.
    HUH?? I said. You must mean it isn’t as imperative that they have a celestial marriage in this life, i.e. if she goes through life unable to find a husband, that’s okay, push comes to shove they can just seal her as a second wife to someone in the next life, but she’s still supposed to have one eventually. I think he agreed that’s pretty much what he meant.
    Has anyone else heard of anything to that effect?
  4. Yeah, I’ve heard of that.
    I always heard it’s because the guys are supposed to ask the girls out, so if the girl gets left without a guy, it’s not her fault, but if a guy gets left without a girl, he’s completely to blame.
  6. As I asked on Beliefnet, does anyone know the age distribution on those statistics? Women tend to outlive men, so that contributes at least some to the weighting. By President Monson’s experience, at least two-thirds of his old ward in SLC was composed of widows :) .
    One problem with trying to explain it all away is that there is no simple correlation between this life’s and the next’s “membership”—work for the dead and those who have died in past dispensations (and other worlds) all play into the equation, so there’s no need for concern in figuring out the ratios based on what we observe today. I do have some funny memories of missionaries talking about the 7:1 ratio, though—ah, the many humorous manifestations of our post-polygamist schizophrenia!
  7. To what Jack asked and Katie answered: There’s certainly a sentiment in the church (but no official doctrine) that we have a responsibility to get married if we are able, and that men are able to get married if they really want to but that that isn’t necessarily the case for women. There are more who would look down on a man who is, say, 35 and never married than a women who is in the same situation. (The woman may be pitied, but the man will be judged.)
    I’m not saying I look at things this way (in fact, I think there are many in the Church who get married way too young), but the feeling is definitely there.
    (Actually, it’s worse than I said above. There are those who think that if you’re male and returned from your mission and not married or at least engaged within six months that there’s something wrong with you. Apparently there are some mission presidents who tell departing missionaries that their highest priority is to find a wife. I was stunned when my oldest son came back from his mission and he started getting wedding invitations almost immediately from those he had served with.)
  8. That’s interesting, guys. I suppose that explains why my husband feels like he’s doomed for deliberately marrying outside the temple.
    Neal ~ Interesting point about widows. Here’s the age breakdown for Mormons:
    18-29 24%
    30-49 42%
    50-64 19%
    65+ 15%
    The average life expectancy in the United States is 75 for men and 81 for women.
    I suck at statistics, but I’m not sure there’s any way to figure out how much widowhood is tilting the gender gap without knowing what % of the church is 75+.
  9. I read an article once about a tall people’s club in Chicago. The tall women (you can relate, Jack!) said that they considered it “a waste” when a tall man marries a short woman. The thought being that there are lots of taller-than-them men for shorter women to marry, but the supply of taller-than-them men for tall women is limited.
    Since I’m 6’5″ and my wife is 5’2″, I’m in that what a waste category.
    I just thought of that when reading your post.
  11. Yeah, but, Jack, there’s the kicker: If your husband is convinced that the Holy Spirit guided him to you and told him to invite you into his family… what Mormon would have the right to object?
  12. I just read that other post on the pitfalls of being a tall woman. That was really good.
    For the record, I love tall women and all else being equal height would be a preference for me. But all else rarely is equal, and that’s just not something that was ever at the top of my list. Beggars can’t be choosers…
  13. Sorry, I’m late to the party.
    re: 3
    I’ve never heard specifically that women don’t need to be married to enter into the Celestial Kingdom. The closest I have heard is that those who do not have the opportunity to marry in this life will be granted that opportunity in the life to come. Technically, that applies to either gender (evidence would suggest that there will be plenty of available singles in the potential Celestial pool, given the rates of those of either sex who die before “the age of accountability). I can see, given the prejudice Eric mentioned, how people would emphasize that blessing for poor Sister Spinster.
    Now, being a 6’2″ man married to a 5’4″ woman (it wasn’t intentional–she beguiled me!), I’ll go check out the tall woman post…
  14. Quote ”I always heard it’s because the guys are supposed to ask the girls out, so if the girl gets left without a guy, it’s not her fault, but if a guy gets left without a girl, he’s completely to blame.”
    Ugh, I really don’t like this train of thought. First of all that’s sexist. Either gender should be able to ask out the other. Second of all, it isn’t exactly fair to the men. Most of the women could be taken and the rest could say no to his proposals regardless of what he does. He can’t make the women marry him. This isn’t Saudi Arabia.
    I think the question of why the majority of religious people are women is a good one. Perhaps not surprisingly, the opposite is true for Atheists, where 60% are male. I’ve read some theories on this and the best non-sexist one I’ve heard is that women are more social than men and thus respond better to the social activities that churches put on. I know that when I was in college the religious organizations would each have at least one social activity per week whereas the political/activist clubs had only serious meetings on a weekly basis and would only have social activities maybe two or three times per semester. The social activities of the church groups may keep the interest of women more than that of men.
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