Wayne County KYGenWeb Reference Page
Topic: 

BASTARDY BONDS AND ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN

The term “bastard child” or “base line child” is
seldom used today, but the State of Kentucky had
definite rules and regulations concerning them. A
bastard child was defined as: “an illegitimate
child. Born out of wedlock or of a marriage of
which the church did not approve. Many times the
child used his mother’s surname and frequently
was prohibited from inheriting property.”

A bastardy bond is defined as “a promise to pay a
certain sum of money given by the father of an
illegitimate child to ensure that no public
monies would have to be spent on the child.
Sometimes the mother would post this bond, but
this was very infrequent.” In other words, the
father was paying for the child’s support for a
certain length of time so the county would not be
responsible for the child’s upkeep.

Almost all the southern states had the same laws,
based on early Virginia laws. The general process
was for the mother of the illegitimate child to
go to the County Clerk’s office or before a
Justice of the Peace and make a statement. The
official asked her some or all of the following questions:

             1 – Are you a resident of the county?
             2 – Are you a life-long resident? If
                   not, how long have you resided in this county?
             3 – Are you single?
             4 – Have you ever been married?
             5 – When was the child born and where?
             6 – Did the child live?
             7 – When was the child conceived – where?
             8 – Who is the father of the child?

One can see the logic behind most of these
questions. It is assumed that sometimes women
would come into the County Clerk’s office and
claim an illegitimate child when not a resident
of the county in order to get money. Their
marital status might make the officials wonder if
she was a married woman charging her husband. The
place of conception and date again was a
double-check that this happened in the county.
The officials also wanted to ensure that she
wasn’t claiming support for a child who had died
– counties were large and the JP or County Clerk might not know the family.

The women were then interrogated, as well as the
father. Few of these interrogations remain over
the years but those that do show the woman’s
name, residence, date of conception, date of
birth and father’s name. Seldom but occasionally
the name and gender of the child is shown.

The next step was the issuance of a warrant for
the father’s arrest. This was served by the
county sheriff or a constable. The father had to
report to the county and post a bond. Seldom were
they able to post the amount of bond by
themselves so had to have one or more sureties
with them to ensure payment of the bond in case
the father decided to skip town.

Next, the issuance of the subupoenas; the job of
the sheriff or constable again. He was provided
with a written form showing the date, name of
person to be served and when the father was to
appear. If one of the witnesses, either for the
plaintiff (the woman) or the defendant (the
father) refused to appear, they were fined.

Depositions were then taken after the issuance of
the subpoenas. Again, few of the depositions have
survived in the various counties. They would be
full of information as witnesses and relatives
were called and the depositions could be rather “juicy”!

A jury heard the testimony and rendered a
verdict. If found guilty, the father was to pay
court costs, plus an up-front fee to the mother
along with annual payments. The latter lasted
normally until the child was of age. It appears
in reading some of these that the fathers were
often rather reluctant to pay what we now call
child support, or had insufficient funds to pay.
In the latter case, the father had to supply to
the court a statement of all his assets, what
moneys they owed, what was owed them, and any
asset that could be sold to raise the money. A
poverty oath was filed if there were insufficient funds.

Then, as today, many times the father’s lawyers
tried to get them released from the decision of
the jury by claiming faults on how the suit was
handled, the wording, questions about unanimous
decisions, etc. It seldom worked!

Sometimes, after a lot of haggling, the parents
came to an agreement for a cash settlement and
the official charges were dropped. If at any time
the payments were not made, or the father refused
to appear at the initial hearing, he would be
jailed until he decided to cooperate. Some chose to stay in jail!

It was not only the mother that was interested in
her child support, but as stated above, the
county was too. In the earlier days, it was the
county’s responsibility to care for the needy and
inform. Even after the institution of the “poor
house” or “county farm” was begun, it was still
county money that took care of its needy citizens.

With the bastardy laws, the county was quite
interested in hearing of an “upcoming blessed
event” without benefit of marriage. Neighbors
were delighted to report this! Warrants were also
issued to the mother, the county wanted to insure
that she came in, and if she didn’t do it
voluntarily, she was issued a summons. If the
woman refused to name the father, she would be
responsible for posting the bond; if she refused
to post bond, she would be sent to jail.

As with divorce in early Kentucky, alimony was
paid on one condition – that the wife was not a
prostitute. I have been unable to find if the
same thing applied to bastardy cases although in
the cases I have seen, there were some
prostitutes that appeared every year. Prostitutes
were often referred to in the records as “locals”.

©  Copyright 31 December 2008, Sandra K. Gorin