GENBRIT-L Archives

Archiver > GENBRIT > 2005-07 > 1121370282


From: "P Pron" <>
Subject: Re: Bigamy
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 20:44:42 +0100
References: <Pph18xAnMD1CFwoz@varneys.demon.co.uk> <20050712220554.0A1365EE1BD@smtp1.freeola.net> <p32cd1hclke6d7u0s9nk0bosbl0k71kuj5@4ax.com>


Steve Hayes wrote:
|| On Tue, 12 Jul 2005 22:00:24 +0000 (UTC), ("Roy
|| Stockdill") wrote:
||
|||| From: Eve McLaughlin <>
|||
|||| In article <>, Mel Morris
|||| <> writes
||||| My understanding is that if at the time of birth, the parents
||||| were free to marry, but weren't, and later married, then
||||| legitimacy would be 'retro'.
||||
|||| This only applied after 1926, when it was possible to reregister
|||| the child as 'legitmate' if the uld have married, but didn't. It
|||| could never apply to a child whose father was not free to marry at
|||| the time of his birth (not till things got permissive in 1969,
|||| that is)/ >
|||
||| When I was born in 1940 my parents were not free to marry because my
||| father was still legally married to, though separated from, his
||| first wife. It is my understanding that the fact that he
||| subsequently got a divorce and married my mother some 18 months
||| after my birth did not, as the law stood at the time, legitimise me
||| because the fact of their subsequent marriage didn't make me
||| retrospectively legitimate.
||
|| I found a similar case in my wife's family about 18 months ago. The
|| children of the third wife claimed a share of the inheritance, since
|| their parents were married after they were born, which the claimed
|| made them legitimate. But the court threw out their claim, saying
|| that at the times they were born their father was married to soemone
|| other than their mother, so the subsequent marriage did not
|| legitimate their births.
||
|| English law may differ on that, but I suspect that it doesn't.
||

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe English law _does_ differ. I do not think
that English law distinguishes between children born out of wedlock, and
children born to unmarried parents, one of whom is married to a third party.
(I think the term is "adulterine children"). The text of the Legitimacy Act
1976 is difficult to track down online, but I think it simply provides for
children to be legitimated by their parents' marriage, regardless of whether
they were "adulterine" or not.

paul


This thread: