In the “good old days” most Jews lived in villages (with no more people that the typical shul, and often far fewer), and the nearest village was often hours away. Consider if one had to find a shidduch from a single shtiebel in Brooklyn, and the next shtiebel over was in New Jersey – and cities such as Baltimore and Boston were a week away. The role of the shaddchan was very different back then, and people were probably a lot less fussier. Oh,did I mention than most women died from complications of child birth, and most men (and childless women) rarely survived to middle age, and few children lived long enough to become parents.
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