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Logic Puzzles 6.0/10

Five Jealous Couples

Five married couples stand on the left bank of a river. There is a single boat that holds at most 3 people and needs at least one person to row it (every trip, in either direction, carries 1 to 3 people; anyone can row). Jealousy rule: at no moment, on either bank or in the boat, may a woman be in the company of a man other than her husband unless her husband is also present. (A woman alone among women, or alone entirely, is fine.) There are no islands and nothing can be left in the water. What is the minimum number of one-way boat crossings needed to bring all ten people to the right bank?

Related problems & prerequisites

Worth solving first

Source: Variant of the classic jealous-husbands river puzzle; no traceable original source. Statement written for AxiomIQ.