Reading the Regency

Family - Illegitimate Children

"No, sir; I have no grand-daughter," said old Reynolds, his face and whole form becoming rigid with the expression of obstinacy. "Rather have no descendant than be forced to acknowledge an illegitimate child."
[Chapter 16, The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth]

Today, whether someone's parents were married or not is less important, but at the beginning of the 19th century being Illegitimate could make a big difference to a child's life and future prospects.

The definition from the dictionary of 1818 describes it as "not begotten in wedlock" but in reality, as long as the parents were married before the birth—even the day before—the child would be considered legitimate. Without access to any form of genetic testing, the legal presumption was that a husband was always the father of any child his wife gave birth to, even if they suspected or knew differently, unless he publicly claimed otherwise.

There were some situations where a child born during a marriage could also be illegitimate or later become illegitimate. If a couple's marriage was annulled after a legitimate child was born it would make that child illegitimate. To annul a marriage meant to cancel it, as though the couple had never been married at all. A divorce could also delegitimize all children of the husband and wife, even those born after their legal marriage.

If the husband was out of the country for more than nine months, specifically outside the "four seas" immediately surrounding Great Britain, and the wife became pregnant at a moment when "no access to her husband could be presumed", the baby could also be made legally illegitimate. One example of this was reported in 1806. Captain Taylor, master of a whaling ship, had been away at sea between April 1804 and June 1806 and returned home to find his wife pregnant. She gave birth in July 1806 and by October of that year, the matter was before the Quarter Sessions where a maintenance order was made against a local farmer, Mr Luff, to pay for the upbringing of the child.

If a widow was found to be pregnant after the death of her husband, the baby would be considered legitimate as long as the birth occurred up to 40 weeks after the death. If the birth occurred a few days after the 40 weeks, the child would still be considered legitimate "if it can be proved, by circumstances, to be the issue of the husband; for the law does not appoint any certain time for the birth of a child."

If a man marries a woman while he is still legally married to another,  known as Bigamy, any children from his second marriage would be illegitimate, because the marriage was not legal.

There were a number of different terms or euphemisms to describe this condition. The most well-known word today is Bastard, although Base Born was also quite common at the time. If someone was described as Love-Begotten, Natural, or a Natural Born son or daughter, this was another way of saying they were illegitimate.

The phrase born on the left side of the bed was also used to describe someone of illegitimate birth. It likely came from heraldry, where illegitimacy is indicated on a shield by a left-handed bar, known as a bar sinister.

Slang or cant terms to describe an illegitimate child included Bye-Blow, Merry-Begotten, Bachelors Son, Squeak or Whore-son. A woman who had given birth to a child outside marriage was said to have made a trip or broken a leg.

Social consequences of an illegitimate birth

"He had left the girl whose youth and innocence he had seduced in a situation of the utmost distress, with no creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He had left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor relieved her."
[Chapter 31, Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen]