ABSTRACT
Knowledge about an illegitimate origin can easily be an urge to acts which in the eyes of the law are criminal. The psychological trauma which is produced by the very fact of illegitimacy has led the delinquents to crime. At some time or other illegitimate children will probably hear about their having been ‘born unfortunate’. Often the dangers inherent in illegitimacy are minimized by the child’s early adoption into a normal and healthy home where both husband and wife, living in a harmonious atmosphere, treat the newcomer as their own. When an illegitimate child lives with its mother alone, some neglect is usually unavoidable, owing to the work that the mother is forced to do to make ends meet. A useful change in the law was made by the Legitimacy Act, 1926, whereby under certain conditions a marriage between the father and mother of a child born before marriage will make the child legitimate.
