Le déclarations de grossesse, l’obbligo degli alimenti e la tutela giuridica delle madri nubili. Francia e Italia XVI-XVIII secolo

Before the 20th century, paternity outside wedlock could only be supposed. Nevertheless, it required the fathers to be financially responsible for their illegitimate children maintenance. How could they be identified? The article focuses on bastardy statements which some European sovereigns imposed on pregnant single women: even if the main purpose was to prevent abortions and infanticides, those statements enabled illegitimate mothers and civic authorities to compel putative father to pay the child support, without resorting to a formal lawsuit in court. In France and in the Italian States, beside judicial and enforcement authorities, especially the foundling hospitals engaged in finding fathers, because directly interested in recouping expenses of supporting illegitimate children. The article relates the bastardy statements to the canon and civil law of child support, to the responsibilities towards the illegitimate, to the financial needs of foundling hospitals, and to the decrease of the legal protection of seduced pregnant women which, between the 18th and 19th centuries, contributed to giving the mothers, rather than fathers, the liability of illegitimate children.