A child may be born alive, but may not be viable, by which is meant that it is not endowed with a capacity of maintaining its life. Speaking generally, 180 days represents the lowest limit at which a child is viable, but prolonged survival under these circumstances is the exception. Many cases, however, have been recorded in which children born at six months have been reared. The signs of immaturity and maturity may be thus tabulated:
| Immaturity. | Maturity. | |
| Centre of body high; head disproportionate in size; membrana pupillaris present; testicles undescended; deep red colour of parts of generation; intense red colour, mottled appearance, and downy covering, of skin; nails not formed; feeble movements; inability to suck; necessity for artificial heat; almost unbroken sleep; rare and imperfect discharges of urine and meconium; closed state of mouth, eyelids, and nostrils. | Strong movements and cries as soon as born; body clear, red colour, coated with sebaceous matter; mouth, nostrils, eyelids, and ears, open; skull somewhat firm, and fontanelles not far apart; hair, eyebrows, and nails, perfectly developed; testicles descended; free discharge of urine and meconium; power of suction, indicated by seizure on the nipple or a finger placed in the mouth. |
XXXI.—LEGITIMACY
A child born in wedlock is presumed to have the mother's husband for its father. This may, however, be open to question upon the following grounds: Absence or death of the reputed father; impotence or disease in the husband preventing matrimonial intercourse; premature delivery in a newly-married woman; want of access; and the marriage of the woman again immediately on the death of her husband. In the last case, where either husband might have been the father, the child at the age of twenty-one is at liberty to select its father from the possible pair.
A child born of parents before marriage is in Scotland rendered legitimate by their subsequent marriage, but in England the offspring remains illegitimate whether the parents marry or not after its birth. The offspring of voidable or invalid marriages may be made legitimate by application to the courts.
There is a difference between being legitimate and lawfully begotten. A child born in wedlock is legitimate, but if the parents were married only a week previously it could not have been lawfully begotten.
The Acts and rulings relating to Marriage and Legitimacy are extremely complicated. It is not putting it too strongly to say that a very large number of people in this country who believe themselves to be legally married are not married at all, and that thousands of children who have not the slightest doubt as to their legitimacy are in the eyes of the law bastards.