Cultural treatment of promiscuous women and illegitimate childrenThe headline read, One out of 12 in America Held to be Illegitimate; Issuance of Partial Birth Certificates Proposed to Avoid Embarrassments (Staff, 1944, p. 4). The assertion conjures a mental image of hundreds of decadent, low socioeconomic status, immoral women and her filius nullius (Latin term meaning, son of nobody). Parents of the single, gravid woman were shamed, mortified or disgusted by the sexual promiscuity of their daughter; how they could face their friends after learning of the daughters transgression? Is this the first era of social stigma related to a child borne by an unmarried woman? The samplings of historical data below indicate no.The Bible speaks often to a debauched woman and her bastard offspring. For example, Galatians 5:19-21 (English Standard Version):19 Now, the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,20 Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,21 Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
