Genitive case

“ I was told by Mandáyas that illegitimate children belong to the nearest male relative of the mother, that in case of her marriage they still belong to her relative, and that they are treated in all other respects as legitimate children. ”

“ The considerations on account of which the granting of parental authority to the married mother is regarded as permissible, have no bearing upon the case of the unmarried mother. The interest of the illegitimate child, and, indirectly, the interest of society at large, urgently demand the securest possible guarantees that the child will be properly brought up. ”

“ It is true, the age o a person may become material in questions of pedigree; but even then the hearsay declaration of strangers, persons not related by blood or marriage, are inadmissible to prove it. Moreover, the present case involves no question of pedigree. ”

“ In cases No. 2 and No. 4 we have the curious situation, by no means so uncommon as many might think, of the wrong man acting the part of father to an illegitimately born child; in the one case this was done through the trickery of the mother and was but temporary, the child suffering, while in the other case, more interesting and less common, vicarious fatherhood was voluntarily adopted. ”

“ Where children are stated, legitimate children are supposed to be intended; unless it is impossible, through the celibacy of the testator, that he could have any legitimate children. But in the case of a female, where she had children of both kinds, and the bequest was stated to be to the children of R. M., deceased, and she left two, one legitimate, and the other otherwise, but reputed and allowed to be her child, and known to be so by the testator, the illegitimate child took its legacy with the other. ”

“ For we obtain children either by nature or adoption; in nature it is a matter of chance; in adoption, of judgment; and we are more liable to blame in the case of our adopted than of our natural offspring; because it is ascribed to nature if our children by birth should happen to be degenerate, but that those who become ours by adoption or other such tie should prove unworthy of it is ascribed to our own mistake. ”

“ As a matter of course, and without considering in the least the interests of the child, or of society at large, they hand over the custody and education of all the children to the litigant wife, whenever she establishes—an easy thing to do—a flimsy and often farcical case of technical "cruelty." ”

“ And it is declared by the 1475 article of the Code, 'that natural fathers and mothers can in no case dispose of property in favor of their adulterine or incestuous children, unless to the mere amount of what is necessary to their sustenance, or to procure them an occupation or possession by which to support themselves.' This is the prohibition upon which the defendants rely to defeat the complainant. ”

“ Philanthropic Tendencies Respect Legal Marriage.—These tendencies, however, are not in the direction, intentionally at least, of making legal condition and status in respect to name, inheritance of family property from a father whose parental relationship is not legally established, and public recognition of parenthood, identical in the case of children born within and without the legal family circle. ”

“ When, therefore, a man died leaving pupil male descendants or unmarried female descendants who by his death became sui juris, they got their brothers of lawful age as their tutors; if he was survived by his wife, and she had been in manu, her sons, or it might be stepsons, acted for her in the same capacity; in either case they took office as the nearest qualified male agnates. If the widow had no sons or stepsons of full age, and the children consequently no qualified brothers, the tutory devolved on the agnates next in order,—i.e. ”

“ In all cases where the paternity of the child is acknowledged openly by the man and with the mother, and guarantees are given that the duties of both parents will be faithfully fulfilled, the child should be legitimized, receive the name of the father, be qualified to inherit from him, and in every way given the same rights as the legitimate child, even if the parents are unable or do not wish to marry. ”

“ Wrongful interception of filiation. This, if it be the offence of him or her who should have been recognised as the parent, coincides with wrongful detrectation of parentality: if it be the offence of a third person, it involves in it interception of parentality, which, provided the parentality is, in the eyes of him or her who should have been recognized as parent, a desirable thing, is wrongful. Wrongful divestment of filiation. ”

“ In an inquiry to deprive a child born in wedlock of its legitimacy, on account of the non-access of the husband, the law requires certainty as to the time of absence, and without it, a child's filiation and its inheritance cannot be taken from it, by any comparison of witnesses or inferences from evidence. ”

“ We have found nothing in the older sources, nor in the older cases, addressing specifically the power of the natural father to assert parental rights over a child born into a woman's existing marriage with another man. ”

“ As regards minors who have parents or me^ta : parent yet living the law seems plain. Such young per- (a) As re- SOUS can neither engage themselves ^ nor contract a vahd fentof °° marriage,^ without the consent of parents or parent.* parents ; If both parents are Hving the consent of both is required, but in case of difference of opinion between them the will of the father, as the head of the family, prevails over that of the mother.* If the father is dead the mother's consent is necessary, and sufificient,^ even though she has contracted a second marriage. ”

“ But, as there seems to be much ground in the peculiar circumstances here, for arguing that the mother should have the custody of the child, or, at least, that it should not be left to that of persons of a different religion from both parents, an application might be made to the Queen's Bench to try the question. ”

“ An illegitimate child whose parents could lawfully have married each other at the time of the child's conception, but who has not been publicly acknowledged, or an illegitimate child whose parents were not capable of marriage at the time of conception, may not inherit at all, either by will or intestate sucession, 'the law allowing them nothing more than a mere alimony.' La.Civ.Code Ann., Art. ”

“ A father, whether under the age of twenty-one years, or of full age, may by deed executed in his lifetime or by last will and testament in writing, from time to time and in such manner and form as he thinks fit, dispose of the custody and tuition of any legitimate child under the age of twenty-one years and unmarried, whether born at the time of his death or afterwards, during the minority of such child, or for a less time. ”

“ Laws in some States protect children more or less from wills made before their birth by parents. Many States provide that bastards may inherit from their mother or from each other, and she from them, and that their parents’ marriage legitimates them. ”

“ An illegitimate child may represent his mother and may inherit any part of the estate of the mother's kindred, either lineal or collateral.'↑ 'The father of an illegitimate child, by publicly acknowledging it as his own, receiving it as such, with the consent of his wife, if he is married, into his family, and otherwise treating it as if it were a legitimate child, thereby adopts it as such ”

“ It will be seen from this that the father alone has the absolute legal right to deal with his child or children, to the extent of separating them, at his own sole pleasure, from their mother, and of giving them into the care and custody of any person whom he may think fit. ”

“ In some countries, again, the legal position of children born of an adulterous or of an incestuous union is worse than that of other illegitimate children.
The social position of the parents, and the existence or non-existence of differences in social rank between father and mother, are circumstances which may exercise a decisive influence upon the position of an illegitimate child. It might almost be maintained that the higher the social position of the unmarried mother, the worse will be the position of her child. ”

“ When, in the progress of a suit in equity, a question of pedigree arises, and there is proof enough, in the opinion of the court, to establish the marriage of the ancestor, the presumption of law is, that a child of the marriage is legitimate, and it will be incumbent upon him who denies it to disprove it, though in doing so he may have to prove a negative. ”

“ For instance, suppose a hitherto childless noble is presented with a son by one of his concubines, and he decides by legal adoption to make that son his heir: the child at its birth, or as soon afterwards as is practicable, is taken from its mother and placed in other hands, and the mother never sees her own child until, on the thirtieth day after its birth, she goes with the other servants of the household to pay her respects to her young master. ”

“ France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Russia, Servia and the canton of Geneva provide no means of inquiry into the paternity of an illegitimate child, and consequently all support of the child falls upon the mother ”

“ God knoweth, but ye know not.
Mothers, when divorced, shall give suck to their children two full years,91 if the father desire that the suckling be completed; and such maintenance and clothing as is fair for them, shall devolve on the father. No person shall be charged beyond his means. A mother shall not be pressed unfairly for her child, nor a father for his child: And the same with the father's heir. But if they choose to wean the child by consent and by bargain, it shall be no fault in them. ”

“ The legally grounded object of the state is, that the children shall be educated in the best possible manner. As a rule, the mother is the most proper person to educate daughters, and the father the most proper person to educate sons. General laws can take cognizance only of such rules; and hence the mother receives the daughters and the father the sons.
As a matter of course, the child generated in adultery is not to be maintained by the husband, but by its true father. ”

“ A child born six months after marriage is considered to all intents and purposes the offspring of the husband; so also a child born within two years after the death of her husband or after divorce.
32. The first born child of a man's female slave is considered his offspring, provided he claim the parentage, but not otherwise: but if after his having claimed the parentage of one, the same woman bear another child to him, the parentage of that other will be established without any claim on his part. ”

“ The suggestion rather than contention that if the state law be held applicable to determine next of kin, the right should have been recognized to seek to trace the paternity of the illegitimate child, so as to make the asserted father the parent under the statute, might well be disposed of by saying that no such contention seems to have been urged in either of the courts below. ”

“ We learn from private statistics that of the fathers of illegitimate children not more than about 45 per cent. belong to the proletariat.
The relationship between the number of illegitimate births, on the one hand, and the number of legitimate births and the number of marriages, on the other, is, on one view, the following. The greater the number of marriages, the smaller will be the number of illegitimate births; the greater the average age at marriage, the greater also will be the number of illegitimate births. ”

“ But, if a man should marry different Women, and by each of them should have one Daughter, or more, all the Daughters are equally entitled to the Inheritance of the Father, in the same manner as if they were all sprung from the same Mother. [233] But when a Man dies without leaving any Son, or Daughter, his Heir, if he has any Grand Children, then, undoubtedly, they shall succeed to him, in the same manner as we have above mentioned, his Son or Daughter would have succeeded, and under similar distinctions. ”

“ The law says that no person shall marry who is under age, without the consent of his or her parents; and the law has very justly drawn this line. The law, therefore, very properly contemplates that no parent shall have the absolute controul over the person of a child in this matter after that child has come of age. ”

“ A father's right to the custody of his own children being founded in law on the right of guardianship, this being taken away, they may of course be severed from him, and put by the authority of the court, into more orthodox hands. ”

“ The father is legally entitled to the custody of the persons and education of minor children, and may appoint a guardian by will for the minority even of one unborn, but the mother may present objections to the Probate Judge and appeal from his decision. ”

“ And I found that by these same laws—when a man in the lifetime of his wife marries another woman, the said woman being in ignorance of the existence of the said wife, shall be held guiltless by the law, and her child or children, if she have any by the said marriage, shall be the legitimate offspring of the mother, legally entitled to bear her name and inherit her estates. ”

“ Woman’s appeal is to man to spare her this suffering and anguish, except when her nature calls, and then will she, for his sake and her own, joyfully meet and bear the cross. It is meet that woman’s appeal should be sustained. I wish to sustain it; and in so doing, while my remarks will bear mainly on Maternity, Paternity will necessarily come under review. Maternity, when a crime, suggests the questions, Who is the criminal? To what extent is he responsible for the consequences? So, in fact, the whole subject of Parentage is open, as involving the conduct and responsibility of both parents. ”