Men were under pressure to ‘perform’
In this time of counseling, understanding doctors and little blue pills, men who might be struggling to perform in the bed-chamber have a number of ways to seek help. Not so their counterparts in the Middle Ages. They couldn’t even expect any real sympathy, not from their wives or their communities. This was a time when so-called conjugal duties were taken very seriously indeed. And it wasn’t just the men who had the right to ask their partners to perform. Wives could also demand intimacy, and a failure to provide this could be very real grounds for divorce.
Indeed, there are many recorded cases of women being granted divorce due to their husbands’ impotency. What’s more, many such cases were carried out in public. In Medieval France, men were even subjected to “Impotence Trails“, where they were expected to – ahem – perform in front of a jury. To be granted a divorce, the woman had to prove that her man was unable to perform. Strangely, a chap could save himself the shame of annulment due to impotency by calling on ‘special witnesses’ – prostitutes or other women who could attest to his manly prowess!
Any Medieval lady capable of putting her husband through such a humiliating ritual was almost always from a wealthy family. Those lawyers and expert physicians didn’t come cheap. But impotency was also a serious issue for everyday folk. Married couples were expected to produce children, and a failure to start a family was blamed firmly on the male.