2. Let us next ſee the duty of parents to their baſtard children, by our law; which is principally that of maintenance. For, though baſtards are not looked upon as children to any civil purpoſes, yet the ties of nature, of which maintenance is one, are not ſo eaſily diſſolved: and they hold indeed as to many other intentions; as, particularly, that a man ſhall not marry his baſtard ſiſter or daughter[1]. The civil law therefore, when it denied maintenance to baſtards begotten under certain atrocious circumſtances[2], was neither conſonant to nature, nor reaſon; however profligate and wicked the parents might juſtly be eſteemed.
The method in which the Engliſh law provides maintenance for them is as follows[3]. When a woman is delivered, or declares herſelf with child, of a baſtard, and will by oath before a juſtice of peace charge any perſon having got her with child, the juſtice ſhall cauſe ſuch perſon to be apprehended, and commit him till he gives ſecurity, either to maintain the child, or appear at the next quarter ſeſſions to diſpute and try the fact. But if the woman dies, or is married before delivery, or miſcarries, or proves not to have been with child, the perſon ſhall be diſcharged: otherwiſe the ſeſſions, or two juſtices out of ſeſſions, upon original application to them, may take order for the keeping of the baſtard, by charging the mother or the reputed father with the payment of money or other ſuſtentation for that purpoſe. And if ſuch putative father, or lewd mother, run away from the pariſh, the overſeers by direction of two juſtices may ſeize their rents, goods, and chattels, in order to bring up the ſaid baſtard child. Yet ſuch is the humanity of our laws, that no woman can be compulſively queſtioned concerning the father of her child, till one month after her delivery: which indulgence is however very frequently a hardſhip upon pariſhes, by ſuffering the parents to eſcape.
