LEGITIMATION
LEGITIMATION. The act of giving the character of legitimate cbildren to those who were not so born.
2. In Louisiana, the Civil Code, art. 217, enacts that "children born out of marriage, except those who are born of an incestuous or adulterous connexion, 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 the contract of marriage itself."
3. In most of the other states the character of legitimate children is given to those who are not so, by special acts of assembly. In Georgia, real estate may descend from a mother to her illegitimate children and their representatives, and from such child, for want of descendants, to brothers and sisters, born of the same mother, and their representatives. Prince's Dig. 202. In Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Vermont and Virginia, subsequent marriages of parents, and recognition by the father, legitimatize an illegitimate child and in Massachusetts, for all purposes except inheriting from their kindred. Mass. Rev. St. 414.
4. The subsequent marriage of parents legitimatizes the child in Illinois, but he must be afterwards acknowledged. The same rule seems to have been adopted in Indiana and Missouri. An acknowledgment of illegitimate children, of itself, legitimatizes in Ohio, and in Michigan and Mississippi marriage alone between the reputed parents has the same effcct. In Maine, a bastard inherits to one who is legally adjudged, or in writing owns himself to be the father. A bastard may be legitimated in North Carolina, on application of the putative father to court, either where he has married the mother, or she is dead, or married another or lives out of the state. In a number of the states, namely, in Alabama, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia, a bastard takes by descent from his mother, with modifications regulated by the laws of these states. 2 Hill, Ab. s. 24 to 35, and the authori-ties there referred to. Vide Bastard; Bastardy; Descent.