| The Ten Best for Women and Poorest for Men | The Ten Poorest for Women and Best for Men | |
| Wyoming | Massachusetts | |
| Montana | Rhode Island | |
| Idaho | Connecticut | |
| Washington | New Hampshire | |
| Arizona | New Jersey | |
| California | New York | |
| North Dakota | Pennsylvania | |
| Oregon | Ohio | |
| South Dakota | North Carolina | |
| Nevada | Missouri |
Of the ten best states for women all are west of the Mississippi, and of the best states for men all but one is east of the Mississippi.
While the states themselves are pretty good guides as to where to go to pick a mate, the location within a particular state may be of even greater importance. For example, in Virginia, Norfolk rates as a fine place for a girl to find a husband but Richmond rates way down the scale. Here is a comparison of the number of white, single girls in the twenty-five to thirty age group and of the white, single men aged thirty to thirty-five in our 106 cities having a population of fifty thousand or more. (In such a comparison, incidentally, virtually all of our cities show a surplus of older girls over older men when those two age groups are compared. Here, however, we are interested only in the relative desirability of cities.)
| The Twenty Best Cities for Women and Poorest for Men (in order) | The Twenty Poorest Cities for Women and Best for Men (in order) | |
| San Diego, Cal. | Madison, Wis. | |
| San Francisco, Cal. | Lincoln, Neb. | |
| Norfolk, Va. | Des Moines, Ia. | |
| Miami, Fla. | Jackson, Miss. | |
| Long Beach, Cal. | Evanston, Ill. | |
| Los Angeles, Cal. | Minneapolis, Minn. | |
| Phoenix, Ariz. | Wichita, Kans. | |
| Oakland, Cal. | St. Paul, Minn. | |
| Tacoma, Wash. | Nashville, Tenn. | |
| Sacramento, Cal. | Winston-Salem, N. C. | |
| San Antonio, Tex. | Knoxville, Tenn. | |
| Houston, Tex. | Grand Rapids, Mich. | |
| Detroit, Mich. | Fort Wayne, Ind. | |
| Baltimore, Md. | Salt Lake City, Utah | |
| Pueblo, Colo. | New Haven, Conn. | |
| Peoria, Ill. | Omaha, Nebr. | |
| Mobile, Ala. | Cleveland, Ohio | |
| Trenton, N. J. | Springfield, Ill. | |
| Jacksonville, Fla. | Montgomery, Ala. | |
| Columbus, Ga. | Hartford, Conn. |
Girls on farms and in small towns may fret to get to the big cities but their chances of marrying will be better in their rural communities, where there are 104 men for every hundred women, than in the cities where the ratio is ninety-six men per hundred girls.
Women’s colleges and all-male colleges may have their advantages educationally but they can deprive you of the chance for normal contacts with the opposite sex, and thus reduce your chances of marrying.
To get a fairly accurate idea of just what your marriage expectancy is, considering all factors, you should take the test reproduced with this chapter on “What Is Your Marriage Expectancy?”
If your expectancy rating is low do not become pessimistic. That’s the worst thing that could happen. Rather decide what you want in a mate ... find where such a mate exists ... establish friendships that will lead to introductions ... make yourself attractive to possible mates by studying their wants and needs and appearing to fill them. This is a formula that will get almost anyone a mate if he or she really wants one.