re: #104 ralphieboy

You are right, they were more about safeguarding property, and a daughter’s virginity was a marketable commodity.

Which led to a lot of women being married to men they weren’t actually sexually interested in, meaning that, in many ways, such courtship actually was a pathway to rape.

Especially back during the Victorian age, when women had their sexuality almost completely obfuscated from them, the wedding night was often a horrifying event.