Sixteen years after the Netherlands became the first country in the world to pass legislation in favour of gay marriage, Germany has finally followed suit.

The answer to why it took so long is that much of Germany remains conservative at heart. While Angela Merkel has helped create the impression of her country as a liberal democracy, aided by issues such as her refugee policy and the decision to dismantle the country’s nuclear power stations, in reality it is steeped in conservative values.

The focus from abroad on Berlin as a tourist destination sometimes gives the impression that the whole country looks like the capital: a party town, a mecca for artists and gay people. But the reality is that large swaths of Germany are staunchly socially conservative. It has one of the widest gender pay gaps in Europe, and there are pockets of deep-seated racism.

The country’s traditionalist nature is underscored by the fact that Merkel’s CDU has now been the leading party in a grand coalition for the past 12 years, and is likely to be re-elected in September for at least a further five.

Public opinion may have moved behind same-sex marriage in recent years – 75% of those who responded to a recent poll said they supported marriage equality – but the ruling CDU has consistently blocked a vote in parliament on the issue. Even on Friday, some of the more conservative members of the CDU invoked the constitution in defending marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

For liberals who hold Merkel up as something of a heroine, her no vote is a reminder that she still has a strong conservative base to play to, and that she remains true to her strict upbringing.

Merkel has religious roots: her father was a protestant pastor seminary on the edge of the old market town of Templin in eastern Germany. Her personality, her views on Europe and her attitude to crisis could all be said to have been shaped by her upbringing under communism. She has said her first political memory was of the Berlin Wall being erected in August 1961, and recalled her mother weeping in church on 13 August while her father delivered his weekly sermon from the pulpit.

On Friday, the SPD’s Johannes Kahrs accused Merkel of having “tripped, Schabowski-like” after appearing to trigger yesterday’s vote on same sex marriage. Günter Schabowski was an obscure East German functionary who in the autumn of 1989 delivered the erroneous message that the travel ban on the country’s citizens had been lifted and they could pass through any of its border crossings with immediate effect. With that, he mistakenly opened the Berlin Wall, and ensured his place in cold war history.

Historians are just about in agreement that Schabowski, who died in 2015, really did slip up when he stumbled over the words of that infamous politburo memo. But 12 years into her chancellorship, it is hard to see Merkel as someone who would make such a clumsy mistake. Rather, it is much easier to view her as a canny operator who meant to trigger the gay marriage vote all along.