Illegitimacy

Illegitimacy, by the laws of England, debars a child from the inheritance of the father, unless express provision be made by will (see BASTARD). It was even held by Mr Justice Chitty (Chancery Division, July 1889) that the term 'children' in a will does not comprise illegitimate issue, if the wording otherwise is not such as obviously meaning to include them.

The whole subject of illegitimacy forms one of the most difficult of the social problems; and there is no branch of social science in which there is such deficiency of literature. And yet its importance is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that 40,730 illegitimate children were born in England and Wales, and 10,380 in Scotland, in one year. In 1888 the illegitimate births registered in England amounted to 4.6 per cent. of the total births, and to 1.4 per 1000 living persons. The birth-rate of that year was the lowest in England since the present system of registration began; but it is noticeable that, while the marriage-rate, and consequently the legitimate birth-rate, has declined steadily for some years, the illegitimate birth-rate has also steadily declined. From 1841 to 1859 the proportion of illegitimate births to the total number registered ranged from 6.3 to 7 per cent.; in the ten years from 1878 to 1887 the average was 4.8 per cent.; in 1888 the proportion was 4.6 per cent. The decline is very striking, because, in the period first mentioned, the rate fluctuated between 6 and 7 per cent. with a remarkable uniformity. In the year 1845, 70 out of every 1000 births registered in England and Wales were illegitimate; in 1888 only 46 out of every 1000. Illegitimacy was greatest in the following districts, the figures here given being the illegitimate births in every 1000 births registered: Norfolk, 74; Herefordshire, 85; Shropshire, 80; Cumberland, 78; and North Wales, 73. Middlesex (extra-metropolitan) compares favourably, with 34; Yorkshire shows for West Riding 49, East Riding, 56, and North Riding, 62; and the great industrial counties come out with Durham, 40; Northumberland, 49; Lancashire, 44; Derbyshire, 43; Warwickshire, 42. The marriage-rate is proportionately low. Thus, while the average marriage-rate in England and Wales in 1888 was 14.2 per 1000 persons, the marriage-rate of Hereford was 11.5; Shropshire, 11.4; Norfolk, 13.4; Cumberland, 12.6; and North Wales, 11.6. In comparing with the returns of past years we find many fluctuations in the counties; but, generally speaking, the highest rates of illegitimacy in the least densely populated districts. Unfortunately we cannot derive from this fact any conclusion referring to the education or prudential habits of the people, for in Scotland, where education is general, and thrift national, the rate of illegitimacy is notoriously high. And, as regards morals, it should be remembered that a high percentage of illegitimacy may mean that there is no prostitution.

In the year 1887 there were 10,380 illegitimates registered in Scotland out of a total of 124,418 births, but in 1866 there were 11,673 out of 113,667. This marks a considerable improvement, and in fact during the twenty years 1879-88 there was a steady, although not a continuous decline in the rate. The rate for 1888-834 per cent.—was slightly higher than that of the previous year; that of 1889 was only 7.85. The following detailed figures are based on the returns for 1888. In the principal towns the rate was as follows: Glasgow, 8.3; Edinburgh, 8.5; Dundee, 10.3; Aberdeen, 10.3; Greenock, 5.3; Leith, 6.6; and Paisley, 6.3 illegitimates out of every 100 registered. The lowest proportion in urban Scotland was in Glasgow—landward and suburban district, 4.3. The highest rural proportion was in Wigtownshire, with 18.2; and the lowest rural proportion was in Kinross-shire, with 4. Next to Wigtownshire for illegitimacy come Banffshire, with 16.8; Kirkcudbright, with 15.7; Elginshire, with 15.2; Dumfriesshire, with 13.9; Aberdeenshire, with 13.2; Kincardineshire, with 12.4; Roxburghshire, with 11.2; and Berwickshire, with 11.1 per cent. The average is brought down by the low rates in the shires of Kinross, Ross and Cromarty, Dumbarton, Renfrew, Fife, Clackmannan, Stirling, Bute, Lanark, and Linlithgow, which range between 4 and 6.8 per cent. The other counties range about the average for all Scotland, with the exception of Shetland, which shows the comparatively low rate of only 4.8 illegitimates in every 100 births. (In 1889 Shetland was the lowest country, with 4; Kinross having 6.7; Wigtown had 17.7 per cent.) What is called the insular-rural districts had an average of 6.2. The comparison for 1888 may be otherwise summed up thus: 1 child in every 12 born throughout Scotland was illegitimate; but in the principal towns the proportion was 1 in 13; in the large towns, 1 in 15; in the small towns, 1 in 12; in the mainland-rural districts, 1 in 10; and in the insular-rural districts, 1 in 16. The tendency to illegitimacy in Scotland is greater in the north-eastern and southern rural districts than in the south-western mining and manufacturing districts—which is much the same distinction as we observed in England. Only, in no part of England are the figures so deplorable as in Scotland. Various theories have been advanced to account for this, but it is doubtful if the whole solution has yet been found. The following may at any rate be instanced as among the probable causes of the prevalence of illegitimacy in Scotland: a national caution, which deters from early and improvident marriages; the laxity of the marriage-laws in respect of the subsequent legitimation of children born out of wedlock; and the herding together of farm-labourers in bothies and farm-buildings. It is to be noted, also, that a large proportion of the illegitimacy can hardly be ascribed to vice, seeing that the parents often live together and rear their families just as if they were legally married, and as, perhaps, many of them will be some day. For this curious practice no doubt the former high proclamation fees may have been to some extent responsible.

In Ireland we find a very different state of affairs. There, in 1888, of 106,433 births registered only 3124 or 2.9 per cent. were illegitimate. Since 1884 the percentage has ranged between 2.7 and 2.9. This is the average for the whole island, but in Ulster the percentage was 4.4; in Leinster, 2.5; in Munster, 2.2; and in Connaught as low as 0.7. Dublin county was chargeable with nearly one-tenth, Londonderry county with about another tenth, and Antrim with about one-fifth of the whole. The marriage-rate in Ireland is curiously low, being only 4.20 per 1000 of the population, as against 14.1 in England, and 12.4 in Scotland. Poverty may explain the low marriage-rate, and it is noticeable that of the 78,684 emigrants of that year over 80 per cent. were between fifteen and thirty-five years old—that is, of the marriageable age. The infrequency of bastardy can, however, only be ascribed to the chastity of the people, early marriage, and the wholesome restraints of the church.

To turn now to British colonies, we shall find some interesting figures; but it is important to bear in mind that birth-rates, like marriage-rates, based upon a comparison with the total population, are somewhat misleading where the population is in an abnormal condition. As in most of the colonies the males largely exceed the females, there must necessarily be an abnormally small proportion of child-bearing women. In 1887 the illegitimate births in Victoria numbered 1580, or 1 in every 21 births registered. This rate shows a small increase since 1880, when the rate was 1 in 27. The mean for fifteen years was 4.25 per cent. of the total births, but the total for 1887 was 4.78 per cent. of the births. As regards the other Australasian colonies, illegitimacy is most rife in New South Wales, where it was (1886) 4.65; next in Queensland (1886), 3.97; next in Tasmania (1887), 3.40; and next in New Zealand (1886), 3.12 to every 100 children born. These figures are remarkably low, but then we must remember that the populations are not yet in a normal condition, and also that the statistics of illegitimacy for many reasons never reveal the whole truth.

This fact must be borne in mind in considering the following table of the proportion of illegitimacy in all the countries of the world for which figures are available. The figures given are all for the period 1881-90.

In the following table we show the comparative prevalence of illegitimacy in the principal foreign cities :

ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS TO EVERY 1000 BORN.

None of the above figures are presented as absolutely accurate. They can only be approximate in the best case, for in every country there must always be a large number of bastards who either are not registered at all, or who are registered as legitimate. But as far as they go the figures are instructive. They do not, however, enable one to form any conclusion as to the causes of illegitimacy in respect either of religion, of education, of industrial occupation, or of distribution of population. Neither can any theory be well evolved from a racial basis when we find Sweden with as high an average as Austria, and both with more than twice the average of Italy and Spain. It is a remarkable fact that in the year 1851 more than one-half of the entire births in Vienna were

* In the cases marked with an asterisk the percentage is of living births; in the other cases, of total births registered, including still-born.

† No statistics are available for Canada.

‡ In the United States there seems no efficient system of registration of marriages and births—a fact upon which the Commissioner of Labour comments in his recent special report on 'Marriage and Divorce' in the republic. Some of the individual states record the illegitimate births, but the figures are misleading because incomplete. Thus, the state of Indiana returned, in 1886, 38,370 legitimate and 560 illegitimate births—the illegitimate being only about 1.46 of the whole: a result which in the light of the above table we can only regard as due to defective registration. illegitimate, but there is no explanation forthcoming of that fact, nor of the improvement revealed in the above table. In Europe generally, although not universally, there seems a tendency to decrease in the rate of illegitimacy; but how far that appearance may be due to moral causes or merely to more comprehensive statistics it is impossible to say.

In the periodical reports of the respective registrars-general will be found details referring to England, Scotland, and Ireland. The Victorian Year-book, by H. H. Hayter, government statistician, may be consulted for the Australasian colonies. The figures for foreign countries have been compiled from official and other sources too numerous to mention. Information about illegitimacy is given in the Journal de la Société de Statistique de Paris (24th and 26th years); in Procedimientos del Departamento Nacional de Estadística, 1886 (Buenos Ayres, 1887); and in Popolazione: Movimento dello Stato Civile e Confronti Internazionali per gli anni 1865-83 (Rome, 1884). In the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (London) for 1859 and 1862 there are interesting papers on the subject. See also A. Leffingwell's Illegitimacy and the Influence of the Seasons on Conduct (1892).