I am not ‘people’. I meant what I posted. And how would you like someone from, say, the 25th century (if there is one) calling practices of which you and I may think little to nothing but humans of that time might see as ‘evil and cruel’? Let that idea simmer for a wee while, ma chere.
250 years ago, a married woman’s ‘consent’ was assumed, but men of ‘sentiment and delicacy’, to use a phrase of John Adams, knew better than to take that seriously. Did most men take it literally? I don’t know but there was nothing legally preventing them. There’s plenty of history, and historical linkages, of which our time is ignorant and there’s much about our times which will likely look positively savage to coming generations.