Read This Legitimacy Overview

The word legitimacy does not carry the same importance that it did in the past. While it is still used to refer to children born to married parents, a child can be legitimate if their father legally claims them by signing the birth certificate or a paternity acknowledgment. Legitimacy, or the lack thereof, used to determine a child's reputation as well as that of the mother. Now many people do not give a thought to whether or not a child is legitimate.

Legitimacy is of less importance in modern times than it has been in the past. Legitimacy is frequently determined not by whether or not the child was born to parents who were married or able to be married to each other at the time of conception. The modern understanding of legitimacy instead examines whether the child's father has acknowledged their paternity in regards to the child. Another modern concern is the legitimacy of children conceived using donated sperm. Due to the growing frequency with which illegitimate children have been born, legitimacy has become a less pressing social concern. The one area in which legitimacy continues to be an issue is related to citizenship of the child.

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