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Little or no historical proof has been unearthed from the Middle Ages to support the idea that it ever in fact existed. It is also sometimes spelled droit du seigneur, "right of the lord", but native French prefer the terms droit de jamb age ("right of the doorpost") or droit de cuissage ("right of cuissage"), where cuissage (from cuisse, "thigh") refers to the exercise of this right.

The linked term jus primae noctis is Latin for "law of the first night". Droit de seigneur is often interpreted today as a synonym for its primae noctis, although it originally referred to a number of other rights as well, including hunting, taxation, and undeveloped.

The survival of a "right of the first night" in the Middle Ages was first uncertain in the 19th century. Although most historians today would be of the same opinion that there was no authentic custom in the Middle Ages, disagreement continues about the origin, the meaning, and the development of the widespread popular belief in this alleged right and the actual prevalence of figurative gestures referring to this right.

The origin of this popular belief is not easy to trace, though readers of Herodotus were made to understand that such a tradition had obtained among the tribe of the "Adyrmachidae" in distant ancient Libya, where Herodotus thought it unique: "They are also the only tribe with whom the custom obtains of bringing all women about to become brides before the king, that he may decide such as are pleasurable to him."