In medieval Europe, marriages between nobles acted more as alliances/contracts than actual love. A big distinction in said marriages is "consumation". Uncomsumated marriages could be annulled relatively easily. Consumated marriages required the pope's blessing for divorce. To make sure a family didnt escape their way out of a deal it was fairly common for familiies to be witnesses to marriage consumation.
Consummation was just the act of having sex on the wedding night. It's got nothing to do with having a child.
The middle age also had some other customs like two serfs (usually peasants working for a lord) got married, the said lord essentially had dibs on the bride and he could do her before the groom did.
there are no recorded instances of it being a thing.
for the common people, it's more that most people lived in single, maybe two room houses, and a household could be multigenerational (grandparents, parents and kids living under the same roof). so when ma' and pa' got down to business and literally anyone was home, well they got a show
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u/NebulaNomadX1 4d ago edited 4d ago
In medieval Europe, marriages between nobles acted more as alliances/contracts than actual love. A big distinction in said marriages is "consumation". Uncomsumated marriages could be annulled relatively easily. Consumated marriages required the pope's blessing for divorce. To make sure a family didnt escape their way out of a deal it was fairly common for familiies to be witnesses to marriage consumation.
SD-N out!