Section 28.2 History of Parental Responsibility

• Library: Family Law Deskbook and 2014 Supp

II. (§28.2) History of Parental Responsibility

The establishment of parentage is now generally governed by statutory law. But the common law of parentage provides a historical perspective for the development of law in this area. Traditionally, a child born to parents other than in wedlock has been treated by law, as well as by society, as something less than a normal child. The child born out of wedlock has been cast aside as the base product of a socially unacceptable union. In the early English common law, the bastard child was designated filius nullius, literally, the child of no one. Some old English cases state that no duty of support was owed the illegitimate child by either parent. 1 Homer H. Clark, Jr., The Law of Domestic Relations in the United States ch. 5 (2^nd ed. 1987). Under this doctrine, the care of illegitimate children who were cast out by their parents fell to society, and these children became charges of the Crown. Faced with the burden of caring for these offspring, Parliament enacted a law authorizing justices of the peace to order support for the illegitimate child from the mother or father. Id . This law was the forerunner of the modern “Bastardy Statutes” existing in most United States jurisdictions. It is...