Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/471

 Ch. 16. quire that the child hall be begotten, yet makes it an indipenable condition that it hall be born, after lawful wedlock. And the reaon of our Englih law is urely much uperior to that of the Roman, if we conider the principal end and deign of etablihing the contract of marriage, taken in a civil light; abstractedly from any religious view, which has nothing to do with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the children. The main end and deign of marriage therefore being to acertain and fix upon ome certain peron, to whom the care, the protection, the maintenance, and the education of the children hould belong; this end is undoubtedly better anwered by legitimating all iue born after wedlock, than by legitimating all iue of the ame parties, even born before wedlock, o as wedlock afterwards enues: 1. Becaue of the very great uncertainty there will generally be, in the proof that the iue was really begotten by the ame man; whereas, by confining the proof to the birth, and not to the begetting, our law has rendered it perfectly certain, what child is legitimate, and who is to take care of the child. 2. Becaue by the Roman law a child may be continued a batard, or made legitimate, at the option of the father and mother, by a marriage ex pot facto; thereby opening a door to many frauds and partialities, which by our law are prevented. 3. Becaue by thoe laws a man may remain a batard till forty years of age, and then become legitimate, by the ubequent marriage of his parents; whereby the main end of marriage, the protection of infants, is totally frutrated. 4. Becaue this rule of the Roman law admits of no limitations as to the time, or number, of batards o to be legitimated; but a dozen of them may, twenty years after their birth, by the ubequent marriage of their parents, be admitted to all the privileges of legitimate children. This is plainly a great dicouragement to the matrimonial tate; to which one main inducement is uually not only the deire of having children, but alo the deire of procreating lawful heirs. Whereas our contitutions guard againt this indecency, and at the ame time give ufficient allowance to the frailties of human nature. For, if a child be begotten while the parents are ingle, and they will endeavour to make an early re- Rh