非婚生子女
维基百科，自由的百科全书
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非婚生子女（俗稱私生子，為有輕蔑侮辱意味的用法）是在受胎期間或出生時（各地法律定義有別），其生父生母無婚姻關係的子女。由於法律上對婚生和非婚生子女的保護程度有別，故有區分的實益。
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[编辑] 歷史
現時不少國家及地區的法律都賦予非婚生子女較婚生子女較少的權利，即使他們擁有同樣的公民權利。在從前的中國、英國、美國等地，非婚生子女常會被視為恥辱。未婚媽媽常會被逼或被游說放棄子女撫養權。有時非婚生子女會由外祖父母或其他已婚親屬撫養，生母則以非婚生子女的姊姊、姑母、姨母等身份出現。直至1960年代，英國和美國才開始不把非婚生子女視為恥辱。在華人社會，至今依然有不少人認為非婚生子女（尤其是婚外情所生的子女）令家族蒙羞。
父權社會傳統文化中，非婚生子女的生父所受的譴責往往不及生母所受的那麼強烈，除了對男女的性行為有不同標準外，另一個原因是難以確定生父是誰，有些生父亦因此不用負擔任何責任。已婚女性與丈夫以外男性所生的子女，有些會成為生母丈夫名義上的子女，甚至他們名義上的父親也不知道自己並非他們的親生父親。而在容許一夫多妻的社會裡，已婚男性與無婚姻關係的未婚女性若生有子女，可以把該女性娶為平妻或納為妾侍（視乎不同時代、地域的法律和女性的身份而定），生父與生母建立婚姻關係後，子女亦變為婚生子女。
在古代東亞地區（中國、日本、朝鮮等），非婚生子女與妾所生的子女同樣稱為庶子或庶女（日本實行一夫一妻制後，「庶子」或「非嫡出子」是非婚生子女的意思），但正式妾待所生子女和非婚生子女的實際地位可以相差很遠。在中國古代，男性的寵婢（情婦）如生下子女可納為妾，但並非必然。有些寵婢即使生下子女，仍然得不到任何婚姻名份，她們所生的子女有時也會不容於家庭，常會於生父去世後被生父的正式妻妾逐出家門，有些則被視為奴婢看待，甚至生父也不把他們當作子女看待。例如漢朝的衛青是母親衛媼與平陽縣吏鄭季私通所生之子，在生父家中被歧視、虐待[1]。有時生父的妻妾無子，而寵婢或其他婚外情人有子，這些非婚生子常會被生父視為正室的兒子（嫡子）撫養，生母卻未必得到名份，亦不能與兒子相認。有些得不到生父撫養的非婚生子女會跟隨母親另嫁他人，視繼父為父親，並跟繼父姓。
Thus illegitimacy has affected not only the "illegitimate" individuals themselves. The stress that such circumstances of birth once regularly visited upon families, is illustrated in the case of Albert Einstein and his wife-to-be, Mileva Marić, who — when she became pregnant with the first of their three children, Lieserl — felt compelled to maintain separate residences in different cities.
By the final third of the 20th century, in the United States, all the states had adopted uniform laws that codified the responsibility of both parents to provide support and care for a child, regardless of the parents' marital status, and gave "illegitimate" as well as adopted persons the same rights to inherit their parents' property as anyone else. Generally speaking, in the United States, "illegitimacy" has been supplanted by the concept, "born out of wedlock."
A contribution to the decline of "illegitimacy" had been made by increased ease of obtaining divorce. Prior to this, the mother and father of many a child had been unable to marry each other because one or the other was already legally bound, by civil or canon law, in a non-viable earlier marriage that did not admit of divorce. Their only recourse, often, had been to wait for the death of the earlier spouse(s).
Today, in the Western world, the assertion that a child is less entitled to civil rights, or abides in a state of sin, due to the marital status of its parents, would be viewed as dubious. Many religions continue to regard premarital or extramarital sex as a sin, but generally do not hold that a resultant child itself dwells in a state of sin.
Nevertheless, the late-20th-century demise, in Western culture, of the concept of "illegitimacy" came too late to relieve the contemporaneous stigma once suffered by such creative individuals, born before the 20th century, as Leone Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus of Rotterdam, d'Alembert, Alexander Hamilton, Sarah Bernhardt, T.E. Lawrence or Stefan Banach.
Despite the decreasing legal relevance of illegitimacy, an important exception may be found in the nationality laws of many countries, which discriminate against illegitimate children in the application of jus sanguinis, particularly in cases where the child's connection to the country lies only through the father. This is true of the United States [1] and its constitutionality was upheld by the Supreme Court in Nguyen v. INS, 533 U.S. 53 (2001). [2]
The proportion of children born outside marriage varies widely between countries. In Europe, figures range from 3% in Cyprus to 55% in Estonia. In Britain the rate is 42% (2004). The rate in Ireland is 31.4%, close to the European average of 31.6% [3].
History shows striking examples of prominent persons of "illegitimate" birth. Often they seem to have been driven to excel in their fields of endeavor in part by a desire to overcome the social disadvantage that, in their time, attached to illegitimacy. Examples include Henry Morton Stanley, the explorer of Africa.
[编辑] Parental responsibility
In the United Kingdom the notion of bastardy was effectively abolished by The Children Act 1989, which came into force in 1991. It introduced the concept of parental responsibility, which ensures that a child may have a legal father even if the parents were not married. It was, however, not until December 2003, with the implementation of parts of The Adoption and Children Act 2002 [4], that parental responsibility was automatically granted to fathers of out-of-wedlock children, and even then only if the father's name appears on the birth certificate.
Recently, some people in the United States have taken to stigmatizing the parents, rather than the child, by labeling the parents as "Bastard Parents," because it is the parents who are ultimately responsible for the actions that caused an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Conservative cultural commentator and radio talk-show host Michael Medved advocates this stigmatization, especially in the case of "Celebrity Bastard Parents."
[编辑] References
- Shirley Foster Hartley, Illegitimacy, University of California Press, 1975.
- Jenny Teichman, Illegitimacy, Cornell University Press, 1982.
- Alysa Levene, Samantha Williams and Thomas Nutt, eds., Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700-1920, Palgrave and Macmillan, 2005.
[编辑] 各地的相關法例
[编辑] 中華人民共和國
根據中華人民共和國法例，私生子女與婚生子女享有平等的權益，私生子女同樣有遺產繼權承。
[编辑] 香港
香港法例規定，於1993年6月19日或以後去世人仕的非婚生子女享有繼承權。 自1995年起，繼親關係沒有繼承權，因此已婚人士的非婚生子女（包括婚前或婚後與現任配偶以外人士所生的子女）並無生父或生母之配偶的遺產繼承權。至於生父或生母的遺產繼承權，非婚生子女與婚生子女享有同等權利。
男女雙方在子女出生時，未具「有效婚姻」關係，子女即屬非婚生子女。非婚生子女的父母雙方一同提出要求，可把父親的姓名包括在登記紀錄（例如出生證明書）內，不需提出任何出生者與其父親之血緣關係的證明，亦不需要提交結婚證明。若後來男女雙方取得「有效婚姻」關係，即確立為婚生子女。非婚生子女的生父或生母可根據《父母與子女條例》向該子女雙親的另一方要求給予非婚生子女的贍養費，但必須証明對方是非婚生子女的親生父親或母親。另外，如非婚生子女被視為一個家庭的子女，可依上述《婚姻法律程序與財產條例》向生父或生母要求贍養費。
[编辑] 台灣民法的規定
根據民法第1063條的規定，無論是否有真實血緣的聯絡，只要是在婚姻關係存續中受胎所生的子女即推定為婚姻關係中之夫之婚生子女，稱為婚生推定。若該子女事實上並非妻自夫受胎所生、與夫並無真實血緣關係，則夫妻之一方可提起婚生否認之訴（參見民事訴訟法第589、589-1條）。
在法律上，非婚生子女與生母之間因為分娩的事實而為婚生子女的關係，自然具有血親關係（參見民法第1065條）。但是和生父之間因為分娩的事實並無法確定血緣聯絡，所以在認領或準正之前，非婚生子女和生父之間在法律上並無任何關係。因此若生父死亡，非婚生子女無法繼承其財產。
[编辑] 現況
近年來由於親屬法的立法基本精神已經由原本的家長（父）本位、家本位，漸漸演進到子女本位，即以保護子女為優先價值，加上以同居代替結婚、婚外情和未婚產子的情況日漸普遍，故婚生與非婚生子女的劃分價值已經越來越低且不必要，因此也有學者主張應該停止區分。
