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This is bad history. Families did indeed have a lot of influence on who you married, but loving parents (which most are) took into account their kids' preferences. Citing one traditional culture in particular--India's-- arranged marriages still feature a large component of the people being arranged getting to know each other to see if they're a suitable match. Citing "The Great Universe of Kota: Stress, Change, and Mental Disorder in an Indian Village", there are anecdotes about how smitten youths can effectively bully their parents into making sure they get married, and the traditional practice of consulting an astrologer on how well a match fits can be gamed by providing bribes in either direction.
...plus, what makes you think families wouldn't want attractive, fertile/virile spouses for their children? Parents are typically invested in getting grandchildren, and finding a child a match they are attracted to is a good way to ensure that.
It's fairly easy to resolve this contradiction because it should be easy to identify how it all worked in practice: singles did have a choice in mating but only within the social circle they were confined to by their family and elders. In plain English this meant they were provided with a limited pool to choose from. So both factors were at play.
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'Good dads only marry their daughters off to men they actually want to marry' is a trope from the literal Viking sagas, it's very old. The indulgent father who can't bring himself to marry off his daughter against her will pops up in Greek mythology multiple times, as well, usually with the daughter setting some impossible task for her suitors that, of course, the hero meets through some combination of superhuman abilities, loophole abuse, and divine assistance.
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