Bastardy and its comparative history
Subtitle: studies in the history of illegitmacy and marital nonconformism in Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, North America, Jamaica and Japan
By: edited by Peter Laslett, Karla Costerveen, and Richard M. Smith.
Contributors: Laslett, Peter.; Oosterveen, Karla, 1905-; Smith, Richard Michael, 1946-; Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure.
Series: Studies in social and demographic history
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 1980
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 431
Subjects: Illegitimacy -- History.
Description: "This is the first historical and sociological examination of bastardy ... during a four hundred year span ... the authors find: (1) distinct temporal and regional patterns in illegitimacy, as regular as those of fertility and mortality, and they suggest that fluctuations reflect changes in the efficacy of marriage; (2) a rise in the proportion of illegitimate births interrupted by two interludes of decline; (3) little impact of urbanization and industrialization on bastardy rates in Western Europe." Cf. fly-leaf of paper cover.
Notes: Based in part on research by the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. *** Bibliography: p. 403-416. *** Includes index.

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