ABSTRACT
In traditional English society it seems to have been unnecessary to ensure social survival that each and every child should have a man, in the role of father, of unique, mature, masculine, protector. If the disposal of the new-born can be counted out in considering the relationship between personal discipline and social survival, so also can suicide. The association between servants and bastardy is quite understandable from such circumstances. Bastardy ratios and rates of prenuptial pregnancy tell us little of such subjects as these. There is one form of analysis, however, which does help us to make a judgment about how persistent sexual nonconformism was. When therefore we observe that bastardy grew less in England from the 1600s to the 1640s whilst the doctrine of the Puritans was gaining influence, and fell to its lowest point in the 1650s when they were in undisputed control, we need not suppose that it was Puritanism itself which brought these things about.
