Are you certain mutual consent had to be respected for marriages to be binding?

Back in Sansa III, ASOS you pointed out that the Lannisters couldn’t outright force Sansa into marrying Tyrion, because if the Faith is anything like the Catholic Church then “mutual consent is very much necessary for a marriage to be considered binding.” Well I’ve been reading about the life of Anne of Cleves and I found something interesting which appears to contradict this statement.

You see Anne of Cleves’s brother Duke William of Cleves was initially married to Jeanne d’Albret (Queen of Navarre and mother to the first French Bourbon king, Henry IV). It turns out Jeanne was very much against this match and her parents had her whipped when she refused to comply. But even then she remained obstinate and on her wedding day had to be physically dragged to the alter by the Constable of France.

Her marriage with the Duke of Cleves was eventually annulled partly on the grounds that she was forced into it against her will. But even taking this into consideration, wasn’t this type of conjugal coercion common place in Europe around that time? Since royal parents usually didn’t care if their daughters didn’t want to marry their chosen bridegroom and were more interested in the benefits their unions will bring, wasn’t coercion sometimes necessary to force an uncooperative daughter into accepting who they’ve been arranged to marry?

Also if Sansa had refused to marry Tyrion and the Lannisters resorted to their usual show of brutality by having her flogged or worse until she capitulates, do you think that could then be used to invalidate her marriage to Tyrion once she was free from their clutches?

I think your example sort of speaks for itself: a marriage was undertaken without consent and got annulled because the Catholic Church really cared about consent when it came to marriage. 

So I wouldn’t say that this kind of harsh coercion was common. Instead, I think there was a more passive process, whereby people were raised with the expectation that they would marry the people their family approved of, and understood that they could be disinherited if they didn’t go along with it. 

On the other hand, for people who were willing to stick to their guns, the option of running away to a sanctuary church/monastery/nunnery gave them a powerful backstop. It’s hard to threaten someone with disinheritance if they’ve taken a vow of poverty.