page_title: Legitimacy (family law)
section_title: Social implications
hierarchical_section_title: Legitimacy (family law) / Social implications
caption_attribution_description: English: British Army File photo of T.E. Lawrence
context_page_description: Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, illegitimacy has been the status of a child born outside marriage, such a child being known as a bastard, love child, or illegitimate when such a distinction has been made from other children. In Scots law, the terminology of natural son or natural daughter has the same implications. The prefix "Fitz-" added to a surname sometimes denoted that the child's parents were not married at the time of birth.
  Depending on local legislation, legitimacy can affect a child's rights of inheritance to the putative father's estate and the child's right to bear the father's surname or hereditary title. Illegitimacy has also had consequences for the mother's and child's right to support from the putative father.
  The importance of legitimacy has decreased considerably in Western countries with the increasing economic independence of women, the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the fall of totalitarian regimes, and declining influence of Christian churches on family life.
context_section_description: Nonmarital birth has affected not only the individuals themselves.  The stress that such circumstances of birth once regularly visited upon families, is illustrated in the case of Albert Einstein and his wife-to-be, Mileva Marić, who—when she became pregnant with the first of their three children, Lieserl—felt compelled to maintain separate domiciles in different cities.
  Some persons born outside of marriage have been driven to excel in their endeavors, for good or ill, by a desire to overcome the social stigma and disadvantage that attached to it.  Nora Titone, in her book My Thoughts Be Bloody, recounts how the shame and ambition of actor Junius Brutus Booth's two actor sons born outside of marriage, Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth, spurred them to strive, as rivals, for achievement and acclaim—John Wilkes, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, and Edwin, a Unionist who a year earlier had saved the life of Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, in a railroad accident.
  Historian John Ferling, in his book Jefferson and Hamilton:  The Rivalry That Forged a Nation, makes the same point: that Alexander Hamilton's nonmarital birth spurred him to seek accomplishment and distinction.
  The Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860–1920) was similarly motivated by his nonmarital birth to prove himself and excel in his métier.
  Similarly, T. E. Lawrence's biographer Flora Armitage writes about being born outside of marriage:  "The effect on [T. E.] Lawrence of this discovery was profound; it added to the romantic urge for heroic conduct—the dream of the Sangreal—the seed of ambition, the desire for honor and distinction:  the redemption of the blood from its taint."  Another biographer, John E. Mack, writes in a similar vein:  "[H]is mother required of him that he redeem her fallen state by his own special achievements, by being a person of unusual value who accomplishes great deeds, preferably religious and ideally on an heroic scale.  Lawrence did his best to fulfill heroic deeds.  But he was plagued, especially after the events of the war activated his inner conflicts, by a deep sense of failure.  Having been deceived as a child he was later to feel that he himself was a deceiver—that he had deceived the Arabs..."  "Mrs. Lawrence's original hope that her sons would provide her personal redemption by becoming Christian missionaries was fulfilled only by [Lawrence's brother] Robert."  Mack elaborates further:  "Part of his creativity and originality lies in his 'irregularity,' in his capacity to remain outside conventional ways of thinking, a tendency which... derives, at least in part, from his illegitimacy.  Lawrence's capacity for invention and his ability to see unusual or humorous relationships in familiar situations come also... from his illegitimacy.  He was not limited to established or 'legitimate' solutions or ways of doing things, and thus his mind was open to a wider range of possibilities and opportunities.  [At the same time] Lawrence's illegitimacy had important social consequences and placed limitations upon him, which rankled him deeply...  At times he felt socially isolated when erstwhile friends shunned him upon learning of his background.  Lawrence's delight in making fun of regular officers and other segments of 'regular' society... derived... at least in part from his inner view of his own irregular situation.  His fickleness about names for himself [he changed his name twice to distance himself from his "Lawrence of Arabia" persona] is directly related... to his view of his parents and to his identification with them [his father had changed his name after running off with T. E. Lawrence's future mother]."
  Christopher Columbus' first son, Diego Columbus (born between 1474 and 1480; died 1526), by Columbus' wife, Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, followed in his father's footsteps to become the 2nd Admiral of the Indies, 2nd Viceroy of the Indies, and 4th Governor of the Indies.
  Columbus' second son, Fernando Columbus (also known as Hernando; 1488–1539), was his out-of-wedlock son by Beatriz Enríquez de Arana and—while he grew up wit
caption: T. E. Lawrence
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