RWBY - History repeats itself

clears throat

Freudian Psychology has a theory that children who have a close relationship with their parents tend to look for those properties in a mate.
It happens that the first example of the male gender that a baby girl encounters is her father, and that forms her impression of maleness in general, up to and including the mate she connects with. Women look to their fathers as a template about what to expect and desire in a man. Sometimes if they have a really bad relationship with their father, they can go the exact other way and choose a husband opposite to their father. Either way, their father remains a very important influence in the choice of a spouse. The same goes for men using their mother as a guide when choosing a wife.
This is actually confirmed to be true in reality- when you are a child you grow up in a safe, loving environment that sets a template for the future. You look for people similar to your parents because they remind you of the safety you had as a child.
Though if people have negative parents (with whom they still have good relationship), they often grab up negative partners as well, so it takes a certain amount of awareness to be able to break out of that tendency if needed.