It sucked? And it was all about ensuring that the patrilineal line was preserved. The laws got tighter and tighter to ensure easy passing of possessions with minimal disputation. Without the guarantee that any child would be the child of the husband, crazy things could happen when it came time for inheritances.
Classic example: King Louis X of France married Margaret of Burgundy in 1305. She gave birth to a daughter, Joan, then was convicted for adultery and imprisoned. While in prison, Margaret conveniently died. Louis X remarried, impregnated his new wife, and promptly died. Suddenly there was a huge problem: if the unborn child was a girl, would Joan get precedence? Normally yes, but there were serious questions about her paternity. So Louix X’s brother, Philip, asserted that he should inherit the throne, and Joan should be bypassed. Joan’s maternal uncle asserted that Joan should inherit, over a possible younger sister. (The uncle wanted to become regent.) For months before the queen’s due date, there were clashes and power struggles throughout France between the powerful nobles and their personal armies. No one was sure who was runnign the country. The baby turned out to be a boy, was poisoned, and died five days after birth. Philip took the throne by a combination of force and bribery, and Joan was married off to the King of Navarre. Philip then had laws passed ensuring that royal inheritance would always go to males, and never to females; which he based on sketchy sort-of-related Salic laws. This law was kept, with few changes, until the fall of the ancien régime. Margaret of Burgundy’s infidelity cost women dearly for centuries.
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