Mormon men did not collect harems. About 60 percent of the men married only one plural wife. Approximately 20 percent had three wives, the last wedding occurring two to five years later in just under one-third of the cases, six to ten in about one-quarter of the sample, and eleven to fifteen in just over one-fifth of the cases. The husband was usually in his late thirties; the third wife's average age was nineteen. Ten percent of the husbands married a fourth wife, and he was usually between thirty-six and forty-five. The fourth wife's age still averaged nineteen. Just under 40 percent of the marriages took place between two and five years after the third marriage, and the same percentage took place between six and ten years.

To put these figures another way, men chose women for their second, third, or fourth wives who were approximately the age of his first wife at the time of their marriage even though he was from ten to thirty years older. (See Table 10.) Husbands selected a first wife within five years of their age, but less than one-fifth were within five years of their second wife's age. Most of the second wives were between six and twenty years younger than their husbands. For third wives, most were between eleven and twenty years younger. More than a quarter were over twenty-one years younger women. One possible reason is that men were attracted to younger women. Another is that the revelation on plural marriage—"if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another"—suggested that the plural wife should not have been married before. Furthermore, a woman sealed to a previous husband could be married only for time, not eternity, making widows less desirable. If a man wanted more children (highly valued in Mormon society), the wife's age would have been a factor as well. Marrying younger second wives was not unique to polygamy either. Pace found that of the monogamous bishops he studied who married a second time—usually after the death of the first wife—the second wife was on the average sixteen years younger.