At a party each man shook hands with everyone except his wife. There were no handshakes between women. Six married couples attended the party. How many handshakes were there between these 12 people?
Each person shakes hands with 10 other people (everyone except themselves and their spouse). There are 12 people, so the total number of handshakes is:
12 people × 10 handshakes/person = 120 handshakes
However, we counted each handshake twice (once for each person shaking hands), so we need to divide by 2 to get the total number of unique handshakes:
120 handshakes ÷ 2 = 60 handshakes
Therefore, there were 60 handshakes between the 12 people at the party.