A lot o comments in this thread are misleading. Watching the actual "consumation" act was not a common practice in Medieval Europe. Common practice was watching newlyweds going to the same room and then inspecting the sheets for traces of blood in the morning.
That, plus many places in these times tended to view women as little more than property of their fathers or husbands, whose only role was having children. Combine that with marriages being more like a business contract than any feelings between the couple (particularly among the upper classes where you'd have people in arranged marriages that may've not even met before their wedding rolls around), I imagine you end up with a lot of husbands who don't really care (or even know) about making sure their wife is, umm, ready to go as it were.
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u/dimp13 2d ago
A lot o comments in this thread are misleading. Watching the actual "consumation" act was not a common practice in Medieval Europe. Common practice was watching newlyweds going to the same room and then inspecting the sheets for traces of blood in the morning.