So hadith which portray her as being a confident, intellectual woman who loved her husband, politics/religion
And that is hagiography.
Saying that by all accounts she had no 'mental distress' as a defence of the consummation of a marriage between a fifty year old man and 9 year old child assumes that any mental distress she might have felt would be described in the body of Islamic narrative - a body that was composed to (by the light of those writing it and perpetuate it) project Muhammad as the most perfect man who ever had and ever shall walk the earth.
To put it in laymans terms, they would say that, wouldn't they?
You know, Ayesha is the one that gets most of the attention. Safiyah is the one that distresses me equally when I think about it. Muhammad killed her husband and tribe, and then took her as his wife as war booty. Of course, the hagiography never mentions any mental distress she may have felt at seeing her husband and people killed, and then to have the leader of those who killed them, marry you and have sex with you.
As with alot in Islamic history, we have to use our imagination in the darkness.