ABSTRACT
As my study has progressed, I have been constantly surprised not only by my own findings, but by the intensity of the reactions they have provoked in others. I started with the intention of examining a particular relationship between personal writing, the name and the signature. I had not anticipated that the investigation of the matronym would also lead towards the discovery that a whole field of human behaviour, that linked with illegitimacy, had been so extensively governed, and to a large extent continues to be governed, by myth and mythopoesis. These are myths of excess. In the recorded annals of bastardy there is no middle way: success must be resounding or failure ignominious.
