Bastardy Cases

It would be wrong to think that every unmarried mother tried to hide her pregnancy. In fact, some women did the opposite. They told everyone they were pregnant and asked police to bring charges against the father of the child. In these cases, the courts would sue the father for support. This was called a "bastardy case." From the 1830s on, it was against the law in Newfoundland for a man to refuse to provide support for a child he had fathered.

Sometimes, when a young woman spoke out about being pregnant, the police would begin by putting the man she said was the father into jail overnight. Perhaps this was to force him to solve the problem by himself—to marry the woman or support the child.

If the man did nothing, he was called into court with the woman who charged him. To win a bastardy case, a woman had to prove that this man was the father of her child beyond any reasonable doubt. Today, this is done with medical tests, but that was not possible then. If the unwed mother had only been seen going out with one man, and if she was generally thought of as a "good" girl, the courts usually believed her. It also helped if she could swear that the man had promised to marry her.

But if the man could find other men who would come in to court and swear that they also had sex with her, or if she was known to be a girl of "bad character," the case could be dismissed. Also, if the man claimed that he had given her money for sex, her case could be lost. Sometimes, even the threat of bringing other men into court to testify against a woman was enough to force her to drop her charge. Also, if the girl admitted that she had other sexual experience, the case was usually dismissed. Unmarried women who had other children or pregnancies found it very difficult to win a bastardy case.

If the court was satisfied that the man was the father of the child, he would have to swear a "Bond of Affiliation." This was an agreement to provide financial support until the child turned ten. If the child died before that time, the father was released from the bond. The support payments were small-as little as $20 a year. The father could also be released from the bond by paying $100 in cash. This meant that anyone with money could get out of this situation. If a man refused to sign a bond of affiliation, or if he said he could not afford to, he was sentenced to jail, usually for six months.