Droit du seigneur "right of the first night", real or not ?

IronSide

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I first knew about it from George R. R. Martin's novels Song of Ice and Fire, for anyone who doesn't know what it is, it refers to a supposed legal right in medieval Europe, and elsewhere, allowing feudal lords to have sexual relations with subordinate women, the abstract of the Wikipedia article claims that there is no evidence of the practice, citing this paper, and yet it goes on to mention various historical references from around the world, if it was a myth, then why do we find many accounts of it from different regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa ?

If it was real, what effect would it have on the Y-dna of the population ? I have a wild theory, maybe this is how R1b displaced previous Y-haplogroups of the neolithic, you don't need mass slaughter of men and enslavement of women to explain how maternal lineages survived, while paternal ones didn't.

Or maybe it's all just a myth ?

Sorry if the subject is uncomfortable, it seems I have a talent for creating controversial topics, it's not the first time lol.
 
Thought-provoking hypothesis.

0b8c7-11unknownname.jpg
 
I don't know if it actually happened, or to what extent, but if it was limited to the "first" night of the marriage I doubt that it had much if any impact.

The odds of conceiving from a one time sexual encounter are pretty slim no matter how many novels and books are based on that premise. :)

Having more sexual access in general to subordinate women because of your position probably has had an impact. How much is anybody's guess.
 
Rich and powerful always had resources to spread their DNA much quicker than others. The biggest effect was observed in smaller tribes of villages. Over big population not so much.
However, in smaller tribes and villages, already most of population, if not all, could have the same haplogroups. If a promiscuous leader has the same subclade as most in the tribe, what's the difference who makes kids?
 
What would you do if faced with this situation ? if your lord demands to bed your new bride .. would you refuse and risk death ? or would you give him your virgin wife but live to bed her yourself (after him of course) ?
 
The more things change, the more they remain the same.:)

Men never think to wonder how it would feel to be passed around like some piece of furniture or ornament, unthinking, unfeeling, like some vase or something.

@Ironside,
Think of it this way: if it was indeed something that was widespread and the lords did it with any new wife, what's the option? Life long celibacy? Of course, you could skip the formalities and have sex before the wedding. What would the lord do then?

I wonder if gifts were handed out? People being people perhaps some women decided to make the best of it, and their husbands too. Certainly, at royal courts a lot of noblemen rather willingly handed over their wives.

That wouldn't have worked in my life, I can tell you. Laughing too much at another's man's jokes or dancing with someone too often was enough for baleful glares across the room. As for working late, he had a disconcerting habit of showing up unexpectedly.

Maybe men in certain parts of the world just aren't all that jealous, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
 
I wonder if the other members of the tribe thought the same way.
Of course not, that's one of the reason why this "first night for the lord" wasn't ever popular and long lasting "tradition". I'm just saying that in small tribes people are very related like first cousins, genetically very similar. From technical point of view, and not social.
 
It's always dangerous to project modern ideas back to the past, but I find it hard to believe such a custom would not result in the lord's head decorating a stake at some point.
Yep, any lord needed to be careful not to piss off minions too much.
 
What would you do if faced with this situation ? if your lord demands to bed your new bride .. would you refuse and risk death ? or would you give him your virgin wife but live to bed her yourself (after him of course) ?
I don't think any peasant was in a position to say no, especially in feudal times. But the lord could have suffered food poisoning accident, or a revolution in times of hunger.
I'm sure a financial compensation, expensive gift from the lord, was in place to balance indignity of this custom.
 
I learned about this custom in a movie.
I don't think it is true, but it makes a nice story.
I agree with what Megalophias said here above.
That doesn't mean that if a powerful man would have set his mind on a particular lady he couldn't exert his position and put enough presure to get his will enforced.
And it goes the other way to. There have always been women that are more atracted to a man's power and money than to the actual qualities of the man himself.
 
Thought-provoking hypothesis.

0b8c7-11unknownname.jpg

How did you get this picture of my hidden father? Shocking!

That said, the facts are not too well based - if you read french you can google "droit de cuissage "in Wiki: the answer is not so simple...
 
I guess the lord was selective. If the woman was good looking, he would exercise his right.
 
I guess the lord was selective. If the woman was good looking, he would exercise his right.
Hard to believe but the ugly were the lucky ones... unless their dream was to check the palace once in her life, have a bath in lords tab and enjoy a million dollar bed one night.
 
Feudal lords needed no big reason to kill or rape, any small considered insult could result fatal.
So there was no need for the first night tradition from a pleasure-only point of view.

Nevertheless, it is supposed to have been used as a mean of submission to successful farmers where both refusal and acceptance would in any case point at the supreme rule of the land lord. I don't thing it is ever mentioned for artisans in cities.
 
I first knew about it from George R. R. Martin's novels Song of Ice and Fire, for anyone who doesn't know what it is, it refers to a supposed legal right in medieval Europe, and elsewhere, allowing feudal lords to have sexual relations with subordinate women, the abstract of the Wikipedia article claims that there is no evidence of the practice, citing this paper, and yet it goes on to mention various historical references from around the world, if it was a myth, then why do we find many accounts of it from different regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa ? ...

It is a legend.

If you can read in Italian, I suggest you search for the accounts of Italian medieval historian Alessandro Barbero - 'ius primae noctis'.
 
There was a scene in "Braveheart" about this (although most likely never happened in Scotland):

 

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