Question

In how many ways can a committee of four be chosen from five married couples if a husband and wife cannot both be selected?

Answer 1

One of the approaches:

Each couple can send only one "representative" to the committee. Let's see in how many ways we can choose 3 couples (as there should be 3 members) out of 4 to send only one "representatives" to the committee: 4C3=4.

But each of these 3 couples can send two persons (husband or wife): 2*2*2=2^3=8.

Total # of ways: 4C3*2^3=32.

hope it helped a bit