The fact that a practice lasted centuries does not tell us how its participants felt about Tuesday.

Duration is not consent. A practice can last for centuries and still have been endured rather than embraced by most of the people inside it, who had no route to record an objection and no alternative available. Longevity tells you a practice was stable, not that it was wanted, and those get conflated constantly in accounts of the past.

When something is defended on the grounds that it has always been done, ask what evidence exists about how it felt to the people doing it. Often none survives, and the absence should not be read as contentment. The same caution belongs in any argument that appeals to tradition.