The Sacramento Bee took an informal tally of the paperwork this week and determined tha, as of Friday, 60 percent of the same-sex couples getting married in the county were lesbian while 40 percent were male couples.

"Women want to be married more than men do," said Gary Gates, a demographer at the UCLA law school. "The idea of partnering is more attractive to women."

Gates said statistics nationwide showed that female couples in "committed" relationships outnumbered male couples by a 2-1 margin.

On the other hand, Gates said, lesbian relationships tended not to last as long on average as those between gay men.

The Bee said that of the 170 couples that applied for marriage licenses in Sacramento County this week, 133 were homosexual based on the first names of the applicants.