I recall a Medieval story about an Italian widow and her daughter.
She maintained a strict and chaste household to ensure that her reputation, and the reputation of her daughter was unassailable. And when the time came for her daughter to marry - she made her a good match to a handsome and wealthy young man.
After the wedding and the wedding night it was customary for the groom to prepare the house for his new bride and then to take her from her family home. When time passed and he didn’t call for his bride, she invited him over to discuss the matter.
He said that he knew the common talk about the house of a widow - but thought nothing of it because of her fine reputation - but when he took his wife to bed she seemed too enthusiastic to be a virgin.
She took him out to the barn and grabbed up a young duckling just hatched and threw it into the water. It swam perfectly well. She told him that nature was strong and that his wife’s appreciation for a young handsome husband was not to be despised.
He took the lesson well and called for his wife to join him in his home.
The lesson? - a young bride with a handsome husband can very well take to sex like a duck to water. ;)
Yes, but all too often it descends into farce, for example alum Sitz baths, and in modern times, hymen restoration plastic surgery, “hymenorrhaphy”. It is also known as hymenoplasty, although strictly this term would also include hymenotomy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenorrhaphy
I remember one medical tale of an elderly woman in South America who needed surgery that would destroy her hymen, and she refused, until she got a note from her doctor, that was the equivalent of notarized by a local government official. Her intent was that when she died, the note would be put into her coffin, with the idea that she would present it to St. Peter, as proof that she had died a virgin.