Among the numerous ceremonies, rituals and customs that have become widespread throughout the world, the so-called right of the first night occupies a special place. The ceremony consists in the deprivation of virginity of the bride, who has just played a wedding and she will have the first night of love. The groom seems to be relegated to the background and becomes an outside observer of what is happening, and the defloration of the bride, or, more simply, the very first sexual intercourse in her life, is performed by another person.
As a rule, this is a feudal lord, the owner of the patrimony and the entire population living on his land, or he is the leader of a large tribe, or a landowner with several hundred serfs. In any case, the bride was given to the groom no longer a virgin. And in some countries, right at the wedding with the bride, all the male guests had to have sexual intercourse in turn. After copulation, the man presented her with a gift. After this intimate part of the wedding ceremony, the friendship between the groom and his friends in the bride's line became even stronger.
On the European continent in timesMiddle Ages the right of the first night was enshrined in law. It was believed that the overlord or even any petty feudal lord gave the young woman a kind of start in life, personally depriving her of innocence. In most cases, the groom fully supported the right of the first night, since at that distant time the feeling of superstition and religious attitude were so all-consuming that the grooms considered it lucky if their chosen one passed through someone else's bed.
After several centuries, the picture has changed. Increasingly, one could meet a groom who did not want to share his beloved bride with elderly princes and counts, giving the right to the first night. He preferred to pay off, to pay for the immunity of his wife. In many countries of Europe and Asia, sexual intercourse with the bride was replaced by other ritual actions. The master had to step over the bed with the bride lying down or stretch his leg across the bed. It was considered equivalent to sexual intercourse.
And sometimes the first night of the young was furnished with so many noisy and restless manifestations of lively participation in the wedding process that a different groom would be glad to give up his place to friends or even a random passerby. In Macedonia, for example, sending the newlyweds to the room where they were supposed to spend their first night and giving the groom the right to the wedding night, numerous boyfriends raised an unimaginable noise, pounded on pots and beat the walls with sticks. Then they closed the door to the chambers and left toreturn exactly five minutes later, open the door and ask if everything worked out, where is the sheet with traces of blood and why there is no news for so long.
And when the sheet was received and the elderly women took it out for all to see, the joy of the wedding guests was endless. Thus, the fiance took over the bloody right of the first night. The sheet was hung out in a conspicuous place and after that dozens of clay pots were broken: “how many shards, so many kids will be young.” And the powers that be, counts, landowners, nobles and others like them, participated in the wedding celebration on an equal footing, although not as ritual performers, but as just guests of honor, which did not prevent them from having fun with everyone.
