A bastard is a child born out of lawful matrimony. A bastard was legitimized by the after marriage of his parents according to the rule of the civil law, but not according to the rule of the common law. By statute, in most of the states of this country, he is legitimized by such after marriage.

According to the common law, a bastard could inherit from nobody. In most of the states of this country, he can inherit from his mother or from any maternal ancestor. By common law, all children of a void marriage were bastards. In most of the states of this country, they will be held to be legitimate, unless the marriage was dissolved on account of a prior marriage.

If the parents of a child treat him as a legitimate child, especially if such treatment continues until their death, this will be presumptive evidence of the legitimacy of the child. The resemblance of child and alleged parent may be permitted as evidence. This kind of evidence will, however, generally be admitted only in support of other evidence, and will never be sufficient proof of parentage by itself.

The personal status of an alleged bastard will be determined by the laws of the place of domicile of the said alleged bastard, while his right to inherit property will be determined by the laws of the place in which the property is situated.

The issue of slave marriages were considered as bastards, but upon the emancipation of the slaves, curative acts were passed in most of the Southern states, legitimizing the issue of such marriages.

The only evidence which will be admitted to prove the child of a married woman a bastard, will be the impossibility of access of husband to wife, or that the child was born a longer time after the death of the husband than the longest possible period of gestation. Perhaps to these two cases should be added the case where both, husband and wife, are of one color and the child of another, as where both are white and the child a mulatto.

Parties to a marriage will not be allowed to testify as to the absence of sexual intercourse between them. In the absence of statutory provisions on the subject, the parents of a bastard are not bound to support him.

The general rule is that the domicile of a bastard follows that of his mother. Most of the cases on this point are English cases arising out of disputes between parishes over which was liable for the support of a bastard.2

2 "A Bastard," at Common Law is one not only begotten not born out of lawful matrimony, or not within a competent time after its determination, or who is begotten in lawful matrimony when procreation by the husband is for any cause impossible. Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, Vol. I, p. 872.