SOLUTION: In a particular town, seven-eighths of the adult males are married to two-thirds of the adult females who live there. Find the pro potion of married individuals in relation to the

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Question 437499: In a particular town, seven-eighths of the adult males are married to two-thirds of the adult females who live there. Find the pro potion of married individuals in relation to the adult population of that town.
Answer by richard1234(7193) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
We can let a%5Bm%5D and a%5Bw%5D be the number of adult men and women, and let %287%2F8%29%28a%5Bm%5D%29+=+%282%2F3%29%28a%5Bw%5D%29. This process definitely works, but a much faster way is to assign specific numbers of men and women since we only care about the ratio between the married people and the population.

Suppose that there are 80 males in the town (you can claim this "without loss of generality," a famous expression used in math). Then, 70 of them are married to 70 different women. 70 is 2/3 of 105, so there are 195 people in the town. 70 males and 70 females are married, so the ratio of married individuals to the entire population is 140/195 = 28/39.