“ JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, or Droit du Seigneur, a custom alleged to have existed in medieval Europe, giving the overlord a right to the virginity of his vassals’ daughters on their wedding-night. For the existence of the custom in a legalized form there is no trustworthy evidence. That some such abuse of power may have been occasionally exercised by brutal nobles in the lawless days of the early middle ages is only too likely, but the jus, it seems, is a myth, invented no earlier than the 16th or 17th century. ”