Fornication and baptism

[stanmapstone]

  I believe the law (and please anyway correct me on this if I am wrong) was that a child was considered illegitimate if it was conceived before marriage, even if the parents were married at the time of the birth, up until the early 1960s. 

A child of a marriage cannot be illegitimate or a bastard.
As the latin phrase has it:Mater semper certa est, pater est, quem nuptiae demonstrant

"The mother is always known; the father is the one whom the marriage points out"; in other words, fatherhood, paternity, is established by marriage; that is, the legal presumption is that a child born to a married woman is a child of her husband, even if that is not actually the case.
Stan

[Charlesworth]

A child of a marriage cannot be illegitimate or a bastard.
As the latin phrase has it:Mater semper certa est, pater est, quem nuptiae demonstrant

"The mother is always known; the father is the one whom the marriage points out"; in other words, fatherhood, paternity, is established by marriage; that is, the legal presumption is that a child born to a married woman is a child of her husband, even if that is not actually the case.
Stan

Rats.  I've been getting my sister with that one for years! 

[jaybelnz]

Those of you who have done Scottish research will already know this, but n the "old days" in Scotland, the Kirk Elders would compear "fornicators" to appear before the Kirk Session to be charged with the sin of ante-nupital fornication.  They would then have to sit on the "Cutty Stool" in front of the congregation to be "rebuked" and to declare their sins and and to show repentence - usually for three consecutive Sundays.  And the newly married couples were also watched carefully!  (as were everyone who "took a drink of the evil alcohol, cursed - especially bad on a Sunday, etc etc)or if a baby was produced inside 9 months of the marriage - they were also hauled in! The Kirk Elders were the the moral watchguards! They would sneak around the villages spying! And some of them didn't have very good morals themselves.

I have 3 like that!  I was telling my nephew about how influential the Church elders were then, the "Moral Watchguard". He was then aged around 25 or 26)  he was very interested.  I told him about several of his ancestors being charged with Ante-Nuptial fornication, and he said "What's that?"  I laughed and said "pre-marital sex - you young bucks didn't invent it you know!" 

Every now and again I get an email from him asking if I have any more spicey Kirk Session Records to send him.  LOL

Jeanne

[ajf25]

She was obviously a kangaroo in another life JM!   

(for those who don't know - kangaroos have the ability to save their next young until the season is right!)

Wiggy   

Aha a kangaroo!!
That would explain my ancestor who had a child 3 years after her husband died and put his name on the birth certificate.   

Lots of kangas in my family too     

Alison

[chinakay]

What a great thread!

I just discovered some of mine (in Dundee) who married less than a month before their baby was born. Sadly, the mother survived the birth by only a couple of hours.

But it got me thinking about customs wherein the bride was expected to be expecting, so to speak. Seems to have been quite common in Scotland. And I thought of three good reasons for the bride to be proven fertile before marriage:
Continuation of the family name
Continuation of the family property, if any
Insurance against old age or illness, when the children would care for their parents

Anybody know any other reasons?

Cheers,
China

[RedMystic]

Those of you who have done Scottish research will already know this, but n the "old days" in Scotland, the Kirk Elders would compear "fornicators" to appear before the Kirk Session to be charged with the sin of ante-nupital fornication.  They would then have to sit on the "Cutty Stool" in front of the congregation to be "rebuked" and to declare their sins and and to show repentence - usually for three consecutive Sundays.  And the newly married couples were also watched carefully!  (as were everyone who "took a drink of the evil alcohol, cursed - especially bad on a Sunday, etc etc)or if a baby was produced inside 9 months of the marriage - they were also hauled in! The Kirk Elders were the the moral watchguards! They would sneak around the villages spying! And some of them didn't have very good morals themselves.

I have 3 like that!  I was telling my nephew about how influential the Church elders were then, the "Moral Watchguard". He was then aged around 25 or 26)  he was very interested.  I told him about several of his ancestors being charged with Ante-Nuptial fornication, and he said "What's that?"  I laughed and said "pre-marital sex - you young bucks didn't invent it you know!" 

Every now and again I get an email from him asking if I have any more spicey Kirk Session Records to send him.  LOL

Jeanne

I read that the last time this happened in Scotland was in 1978 - yup - you read that date correctly! It was on either the Isle of Harris or Lewis.

I had a fair number of the 'roos in my family too, but they mostly came from my lowland branches, not my Highlanders. 

[jaybelnz]

  Robbie Burns was there as well!!  He called it the "Creepie Chair"

On this day in 1786 twenty-seven-year-old Robert Burns served his third and last public penance for having "ante-nuptial fornication" with his eventual wife, Jean Armour. Burns had privately acknowledged his behavior and legally bound himself to Jean by giving an oral and written promise of marriage, but her parents would have none of it. They destroyed his note and made their daughter write one of her own to the church fathers, admitting pregnancy and naming Burns. The "fornication police," as Burns called them, were empowered to impose both a fine and a public rebuke -- though in his case Burns was allowed to stand in his usual pew rather than sit on the penitential stool or, again in Burns parlance, "the Creepie Chair."   

Jeanne

[majm]

So if the grandparent/s of the two wee Scots in the image at the OP did NOT want to recognise their own grandchilren then they simply could whisper to the clergy that f word and the clergy could scribe away safe in the knowledge that RChatters would discourse upon his then PC wording ........ Perhaps therein lies the the impediment to finding a lawful mc ..... The conspiring Grandparent ...

[stanmapstone]

It was not just Scotland, an Order of Penance was imposed in England, see http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,426549.msg2915824.html#msg2915824

Stan