Fornication and baptism

[Guy Etchells]

  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

Not so the husband has the option to show that he could not be the father (for instance he could have been overseas for a year, or he could be sterile).
The law allows for those and similar exceptions.
Cheers
Guy

[Dissman]

Told by a Welsh comedian - I forget who.

Two ladies in the village store, discussing the weather :-

First lady:  Have you heard about Megan Pugh - she's getting married.

Second Lady: No - is she pregnant.

First Lady: No.

Second Lady: Well there's posh for you.

[majm]

 

Port Out Starboard Home and no apparent ante nuptial activity either ... I heard on the grapevine that Megan Pugh was in fact Megan Prude ...

Seriously though,  There's many apparently bigamous relationships in the early British settlements in New South Wales, caused no doubt by a General Order of Governor Lachlan Macquarie, as he sought to
"..... reprobate and check .... persons of different Sexes cohabiting and living together ... unsanctioned by the legal ties .... , immoral and illicit Intercourse (as might have been expected) not only highly injurious to the Interests of the Society at large,   but often times attended also with grievous Calamity to the Parties themselves, and the innocent Offspring of their Misconducts ..... "

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/627934
24 February 1810  Sydney Gazette

Cheers,  JM  (Gov Macquarie was a Scot, his MI "Father of Australia" 1762-1824   and NSW was a penal colony within the British Empire)

[majm]

Some further research for  RChatters

(Gleaned from the digitised newspapers in Australia)  In this 1825 cutting, there is reference to the philosophic the moral Paley,and a book that Paley penned.  The heading "fornication" is mentioned,  and the edition etc ... Vol 1, pp 221, 21st Edin Edition.

So as it was in its 21st Edinburgh edition before 1825, it could well be a book published in mid 1700's ... which is when these wee Scottish babies were baptised.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2183933
14 April 1825 Sydney Gazette

AND ALSO (some further thoughts)

Those conspiring Grandparents may well have chosen to NOT recognise the marriage of the parents of those 2 wee Scottish babies... 

Have you determined the names of those grandparents ... were either couple sufficiently funded to seek to ignore (choosing not to recognise) a marriage of one of their own issue

Have you considered if the parents of those 2 babies ... did either of them have a sibling who may have sought to whisper to the clergy so that sibling could position themselves and their issue to gain a family inheritance ..
 
Did either of those parents suffer the Creepie Chair

Did either of those parents have reading skills ... if not then perhaps they did not ever discover  what was recorded against those baptismal records ...    ... I am sure they would have been severely addressed by the Clergy, but if they were not able to read, then here's some proof that the adage "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me"

EDIT TO NOTE ATTACHMENT
 
Cheers,  JM

[jaybelnz]

Sorry - hit the wrong button, wasn't finished. See next post

[jaybelnz]

Yes majm  - and that possible lack of reading skills could also mean no no-one (except future genealogists perhaps   , would read the remarks or "labels" made by whoever recorded the births, just as in Stan's list!
  This was it;
From a Parish Baptism register

- natural child of Mary X
- base born child of Mary X
- illegitimate child of Mary X
- another of Mary X's bastards
The parish priest/clerk was obviously getting a bit fed up.

Jeanne

[Wiggy]

I just love Stan's list!!   

Have copied it and sent it to some clerical friends of mine - they love it too!!

Wiggy

[majm]

I have a cousin who is a retired Rev'd.  He assures me that  "reputed" father was perhaps the least offensive expression used in parish records to which he entered BDM events that he conducted, some of those registers dated from early NSW settlement.

Cheers,  JM


 

[aelf]

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

A few years ago I came across a case in the Tillicoultry Kirk Session, unrelated to my wife's ancestors (for once), so I only read it out of prurience and didn't take notes.  A couple were accused of fornication and the girl's sister was called as a witness.  She knew the man visited but was not sure whether "guilt was committed" in spite of the fact that they were all in the same bed at the time.