Shame and scandal

[Lyle1]

This of course means that all but one of my aunts and uncles are illigitimate.


Anne the Pleater :ootd:

Not necessarily. Apparently, both common and canon law consider children born of putative marriages (where one or both partners to the marriage believe it to be legal or valid) to be legitimate. So if at least on of the partners did not know the marriage to be bigamous, the children would be considered legitimate.

That makes me feel good. One of my great-grandmothers had two bigamous marriages. She was told that her first husband was dead and remarried; the second husband died, so she married a third. Then all hell broke loose when her first husband showed up! She had children to all three husbands.

Personally, I'm not bothered by what I've found while doing genealogical research, though my wife has convinced me to keep one or two recently discovered secrets to myself.