Finding a spouse

People tend to think they have met their spouses by chance, yet a strong social homogamy exists. By what mechanism or through what set of rules, acting like the invisible hand of Adam Smith, is the behaviour of individuals oriented in a same direction ? Michel Bozon [**] and François Heran [**] describe social homogamy in present-day France and examine the rules which govern the places where people meet their spouses.
Many studies [***] have revealed the existence of spatial homogamy, but the present paper delves more deeply into the subject and shows how the spatial segregation of the different social classes leads to a parallel segregation in their meeting-places, which in turn favours homogamy.