I CHOOSE YOU.......(but only because all the best people are taken)

Suppose there are 26 women and 26 men each wanting to be married. For each sex, all of that sex agree on the same ranking of the 26 members of the opposite sex in terms of desirability as marriage partners. Call them A to Z and A' to Z' respectively in decreasing preferential order. A and A' voluntarily choose to get married, each preferring the other to any other partner. B would most prefer to marry A' and B' would most prefer to marry A, but by their choices A and A' have removed these options. When B and B' marry their choices are not made nonvoluntary merely by the fact that there is something else they each would rather do. B and B' choose among fewer options than A and A' did. This contraction of the range of options continues down the line until we come to Z and Z', who each face a choice between marrying the other or remaining unmarried. Each prefers any one of the 25 other partners who by their choices have removed themselves from consideration by Z and Z'. Z and Z' voluntarily choose to marry each other. The fact that their only other alternative is (in their view) much worse and the fact that others choose to exercise their rights in certain ways, thereby shaping the external environment of options in which Z and Z' choose, does not mean that they did not marry voluntarily.