Answer: The excerpt claims that the population of men and women was unequal with a huge difference in numbers in New England, right from the time of its founding.
Explanation: New England saw a roughly equal distribution of men and women over the colonies. While women were scarce in Chesapeake, the men were huge in number. Comparatively, women were located in huge numbers in northern colonies. The second paragraph shows the difference in sex ratios between men and women in the colonies.
Until the end of the century during Virginia's settlement, the male-to-female sex ratio was always dominated by the male. However, the new emigrants saw a fairly proportional number of women. This ensured a successful settlement for men.