A Study Of The Issue Of Illegitimate Relief In The English Old Poor Law

In England, illegitimate refer to the children who born out of the wedlock, they are the products of the extramarital relationship. Since middle ages, they have been condemned by the mainstream, they remained on the margins of society. The Common Law reflected the prejudice as well, illegitimate were treated badly, they were filius nullius--the children of nobody, they were deprived of inheritance and prohibited from applying for the senior post. They may be abandoned by their mothers on account of the sin, they would find it hardly to survive, they bounded to face the absent treatment if they were survived. The old poor law passed during the reign of Elizabeth I, Continuing the relief function of the Church, which included the provisions of relieving the illegitimate, up to now, a relatively perfect system has been formed in illegitimate relief in England, In the process of this development, The dramatic changes lied in the phases from the old poor law to the new poor law. It is correlated with the issue resting in the illegitimate relief system of the old poor law. Therefore, I try to understand the issue based on this thoughtfulness, by combing the entire history of the illegitimate relief system, hoping to gain a new understanding of importance of the changes in illegitimate provisions in the new poor law.The preface of this paper seeks to review the domestic and international research summary correlated with this subject, and expects to understand the significance of this research. The main body of the article is given over to analyzing the problem of the provisions relating to the illegitimate under the old poor law.In the first chapter, I will seek the origin of the support system of bastard children. Although the concept of bastard in the Common Law and the Canon Law was the same, when it come to the issue whether a child was bastard or not in the court, two laws divided on the issues. The illegitimate in the Common Law were filius nullius, they need help, the Canon Law undertook the due obligations.In the second chapter, I will introduce the illegitimate clauses in the old poor law, then show the process of realizing the liability. We can see that the relieve system based on the parish, the most of the funds depended on the fathers.In the third chapter, I will talk about the problems of relief system in the old poor law combined with the social background. It divided into three parts:the problem found in the process of examining the identity of bastard child’s father. In the petty sessions, the child’s mother had the right to identify the child’s father, focusing on supporting the bastard, the Guardians and the father had little choice, however, the mothers had more choice--a loophole in the law. Secondly, the child and his/her mother were able to gain the allowance from his/her father through the parish they settled in. Although the sum of the funds varied in different places, the mothers didn’t have to shoulder the economical responsibilities, moreover, they can gain some allowance for themselves by using some strategies. Finally, the support to bastards in the workhouse. At the beginning, the conditions in the workhouse was bad for the children, the high mortality rate was so high that some of the Philanthropists appealed to make the conditions better for them, as a result, the cost was soaring. Therefore, it can be seen that the main problem in the supporting system is the absence of the responsibility of mothers.In the fourth chapter, I focus on the details relating to illegitimacy of new poor law, The new poor law makers may be very strict to the mothers, but they clearly realize that they should change the provisions related to illegitimacy to rectify the abuse of old poor law.The last part is my conclusion. After the research and study in the previous chapters, I get a brief overview of the history of the relief system relating to illegitimacy and draw a conclusion that the reformation of the illegitimacy provisions is necessary for perfecting the laws and is the reaction of the social changes. In this process, illegitimate children is brought in the law as "children", they gradually gain the right equals to the legitimate children.