Why it is easier, in some communities, to find a wife than a husband

So the word on the streets of religious Jewish New York is that for the past whole bunch of years it has been much easier for a boy to find a wife than it has been for a girl to find a husband. Husbands are in way more in demand than wives. I was never quite sure why. I would guess though that it has a lot to do with the fact that men are more likely to marry out of their exact social niche. Woman are less likely.

So assuming that there are an equal number of births across all demographic lines then if all the women of type X were looking for all the men of type X (where X specified some very specific socio-economic-religious group. Remember, that in the religious community there are enormous numbers of distinct "types" and everyone knows what "type" they are looking for, eg, will be kovea itim, goes to movies. . .) and all the men of type X were looking for the corresponding women, then there would be no problem. However what I suspect happens is that women of type X look for men of type X and men of type X feel free to look for women of type W, X, or Y. So men have a dating pool that is three times larger.

This can go on because the men at the edges of the religious community feel free to marry people much more and much less religious. So at the edges (which can be a large demographic, given the small Jewish population in general) the women are in tune with the general population and so are the men. But in the middle the men are capable of mobility and the women are less. So the women find that they all compete for the men in the same social circles and the men do not compete for the women, they just move to other social circles, leaving the women with fewer choices, and thus making it harder for them to get married.

In short, the problem lies in the religion's strong ability to control womens' precisely defined roles more than they can control the men. Conversely you can say that it is the women's apparent belief in the ability of the status quo to take care of them that does this. It may be genetic of a product of culture. The women have more to loose if they leave their culture, and have "an outsider's" child, and by some misfortune find themselves husbandless. They shoulder the whole burden of caring for the child. (Many suspect that this is one of the origins of Jewish matrilineal descent.)

I am not sure this is unique to religious Judaism. I suspect that many immigrant communities deal with similar issues. Women are generally expected to marry one of the fold, whereas men are freer to marry a local. ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding" comes to mind here.) Many communities have other special demographic issues which would make for an interesting comparison. Imagine countries (like China) that practiced infanticide largely disproportionately against female children. That would make the women who did make it more in demand come marriage time; no? Imagine a country like Lebanon where there were 100,000 killed in a civil war, most of the dead being men. That should make men more valuable come marriage time. What about countries where there is a large number of people who emigrate, again men tend to do this more. And on and on. . . .