what is an illegitimate child

An illegitimate child is a child born to parents who are not married to each other. In traditional Western common law, legitimacy 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. In Scots law, an illegitimate child would be legitimized by the subsequent marriage of their parents, provided they had been free to marry at the date of the conception. Historically, illegitimate children were regarded as virtual outlaws, and their inheritance rights were curtailed under early Roman, Spanish, and English law. However, the trend of legitimacy laws has been toward more humane treatment of illegitimate children, and changes in laws have allowed them to inherit properties. In most national jurisdictions, the status of a child as a legitimate or illegitimate heir could be changed—in either direction—under the civil law. An illegitimate child’s status may be changed by a legal action called legitimation, granting them all the rights of legitimate children—except that property or money... .