[tlb]

The opposite is true. Because women in their narrow age range of attractiveness get paired with men in a much broader age range of attractiveness, that would create a shortage of women. Say, if women 25-35 date men 30-45, there are 50% more men in that group.

or combining folk wisdom and math: d(half your age + 7) / d (age) < 1

However, the fact that men propose and women decide creates an inversion. Early marriages take decisive women and attractive men off the market, leaving beautiful women and schlubs. Hooray for graph theory!

[miloshh]

Actually, I think critic above had it right. Sure, women are considered more attractive when 20-30, and get a lot of attantion from men in that age, much more than men do at any point in their life. After women get past 30, things simply get back to "normal", but to them this seems as a shortage. In fact, single women above 30 seem to be the only group that ever refers to a "shortage of suitable males" - in my experience, younger women and men are generally surprised as to why such thing should ever exist.

Furthermore, the theory that men are trying hard to marry, and the most attractive ones "succeed" to marry at a younger age, just does not seem to be realistic, especially not in modern society. There are good reasons for men not to marry early.

[dannyj]

But it seems that men in their early 20s are trying harder to get laid. Thus the agressivness of the "weak"bidders..