Table of Contents

CHAPTER III - OF ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN

 

SECTION I - OF LEGITIMATION

Art. 21. Children born out of marriage, except those who are born from incestuous or adulterous connection, may be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their father and mother, whenever the latter have legally acknowledged them for their children, either before their marriage or by their contract of marriage itself.

Art. 22. Legitimation may even be extended to deceased children who have left issue, and in that case it benefits such issue.

Art. 23. Children legitimated by a subsequent marriage, have the same rights as if they were born during marriage.

 

SECTION II - OF THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN

Art. 24. Illegitimate children who have been acknowledged by their father are called natural children, and those whose father is unknown are contra-distinguished by the appellation of bastards.

Art. 25. The acknowledgment of an illegitimate child, shall be made by a declaration executed by a notary public in presence of two witnesses, whenever it shall not have been made in the registering of the birth or baptism of such child.

Art. 26. Such acknowledgment shall not be made in favor of the children born from an incestuous or adulterous connexion.

Art. 27. The acknowledgment made by the father without the concurrence or consent of the mother, shall have effect only with respect to the father.

Art. 28. Illegitimate children though duly acknowledged, cannot claim the rights of legitimate children. The rights of natural children are regulated under the title of successions.

Art. 29. Every acknowledgment made by either father or mother, and, likewise every claim set up by natural children, may be contested by all those who are therein concerned.

Art. 30. Illegitimate children who have not been legally acknowledged, may be allowed to prove their paternal descent, provided they be free and white.

Art. 31. In the case where the proof of natural paternal descent is authorised, under and by the preceding article, this proof may be made in either of the following ways:
1stly, By all kinds of private writings in which the father may have acknowledged the bastard as his child, or may have called him so.
2ndly, When the father, either in public or in private, has acknowledged him as his child, or has called him so in conversation, or has caused him to be educated as such.
3rdly, When the mother of the child was known as living in a state of concubinage with the father, and resided as such in his house at the time when the child was concieved.

Art. 32. The oath of the mother supported by proof of the co-habitation of the reputed father with her, out of his house, is not sufficient to establish natural paternal descent, if the mother be known as a woman of dissolute manners, or as having had an unlawful connection with one or more men, other than the man whom she declares to be the father of her child, either before or since the birth of the said child.

Art. 33. In case of rape, whenever the time of such rape shall agree with the time of the conception, the ravisher may be at the suit of the concerned parties, declared to be the father of the child.

Art. 34. Illegitimate children of every description, may make the proof of their natural maternal descent.
But the child who will make such proof, shall be bound to shew that he is identically the same person as the child whom the mother brought.

 

CHAPTER IV - OF ADOPTION

Art. 35. Adoption which was authorised by the laws heretofore in force shall be and is his hereby abolished.




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