According to the Livescience.com of September 17, wedding bells ring sooner for women in places where single ladies are scarce, showed a new study of metropolitan¹ areas in the US.

Where single women are rare, women marry earlier, researchers reported August 4 in the journal Evolutionary² Psychology³. The shift may be because the ladies have more men to choose from, while the men have extra motivation to put a ring on it.

"Women are basically getting snapped up, because the guys want to get her before somebody else does," study author Daniel Kruger, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Michigan, told LiveScience.

Kruger first became interested in studying the effects of gender⁴ imbalance on the marriage market when he caught a glimpse of a magazine cover on a trip to New York City.

"It had this cover picture on it that said, 'Attack of the Single Woman,' and it had this giant woman with a big red dress like Godzilla tromping through the city," Kruger recalled. "It made me wonder just what would happen to these relationship dynamics⁵ if there really was a surplus of single women."

After controlling for income and race, Kruger found that in areas where women were scarce, women married slightly earlier. Men's average age of marriage didn't change relative to the abundance of potential mates, but they did show more variability in the age when they married than women did. That's likely because guys who can snag a women will settle down quickly, Kruger said, but because women can be more choosey, other men may have to build up their finances and social status before they can catch a bride.

The top five areas where women were scarce, with their gender ratio and median age of marriage for women, were: Las Vegas: ratio 116, 24.5 years (Median marriage age for women); San Diego: ratio 115, 25.9 years; Salt Lake City: ratio 113, 23.2 years ; Austin, Texas: ratio 112, 26.2 years; Phoenix⁶: ratio 111, 25 years.

The top five areas where men were scarce were: Birmingham, Alabama: ratio 88, 26.7 years (Median marriage age for women); Memphis, Tennessee: ratio 88, 27.2 years; New Orleans: ratio 89, 27.8 years; Richmond, Virginia: ratio 89, 26.3 years; A three-way tie for New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., ratio 92, where median marriage ages were 28.3, 27.9 and 27.8, respectively.

据生活科学网站9月17日报道，美国一项对大城市进行的最新调查研究表明，单身女性越少的地区，婚礼钟声为她们敲响的越早。

研究者的调查刊登在8月4日的《进化心理学杂志》，标题是“女性越稀少的地方女性结婚越早”，这种变化的原因可能是如果女性选择的对象很多，那么男性就有更多的动力迫切地想把戒指戴在某个人手上。

调查研究作者、密歇根大学进化心理学家丹尼尔•克鲁格告诉生活科学网，“（在女性稀少的地区），女性基本上结婚都很早，这是因为男性们想赶在同伴之前把她们抢到手。”

克鲁格在一次去纽约的旅行中偶尔看到一本杂志的封面，从此对研究婚姻中性别失衡造成的影响产生了极大地兴趣。

克鲁格回忆说，“封面图片配的文字是‘对单身女性的攻击’, 图片上是一个身穿艳丽红色裙子、身材巨硕的女人，就像是一个穿越城市的哥斯拉。它让我思考如果有大量的‘剩女’，那男女动态发展将会发生怎样的变化。”

在把收入和种族的因素也考虑进去，克鲁格发现女性稀少的地区，女性结婚要略早一些。男性平均结婚年龄没有因男性数目较多而有所变化，但是男性结婚以后的变化要比女性大，这是因为男性一旦结婚很快就安定下来，女性比较挑剔，其他男性如果要结婚，可能要先有坚实的经济基础和社会地位。

女性人数稀少、性别比例高和平均结婚年龄较小的前五大城市分别是拉斯维加斯，比例是116，24.5岁（女性平均结婚年龄）；圣地亚哥，比例是115，女性平均结婚年龄是25.9岁；盐湖城市，比例是113，女性平均结婚年龄是23.2岁；德克萨斯州奥斯汀，比例是112，女性平均结婚年龄是26.2岁；菲尼克斯，比例是111，女性平均结婚年龄是25岁。

男性人数稀少的前五大城市分别是：阿拉巴马州伯明翰，比例是88，女性平均结婚年龄是26.7岁；田纳西州孟菲斯，比例是88，女性平均结婚年龄是27.2岁；新奥尔良，比例是89，女性平均结婚年龄是27.8岁；弗吉尼亚州的里士满，比例是89，女性平均结婚年龄是26.3岁；纽约、费城和华盛顿三大城市的比例是92，女性平均结婚年龄分别是28.3岁、27.9岁和27.8岁。