Note 29 — Chapter I · Marriage Laws and Customs.

Beaumanoir, c. 18, Sec. 24; II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 398.

The law did not give the marriage any retroactive effect, by reason of this custom of throwing a mantle over the children born prior to wedlock, but the custom was recognized by the law, to the effect of legitimating the children, in the sense that the act of adopting the custom was equivalent to a legal adoption of the children, and in spreading the cloak over the children, the law was willing to also spread its protecting “mantle” over them and thus they became “mantle children,” by force of both the law and this old custom of adoption. Although followed in Germany, France and Normandy, this custom was refused judicial recognition in the reign of Henry II. and Henry III. See Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 398. But for illustrations of the application of the custom in the countries above named, see Schroder’s “Mantel-Kinder” of Germany, D. R. G. 712.

Discussing the subject of “mantle-children,” in his work “Wedding Day in All Ages,” Wood says: “According to the Scotch law, the marriage of the father and mother legitimatizes all children previously born, however old they may be. An old saying is that ‘all children under the mother’s girdle or apron-string’ at the time of the marriage, are legitimate. In very early days children born before wedlock used to perform a part in the marriage ceremony, by being placed under the veil or mantle of the bride or the pallium of the altar, in which position, they received the nuptial benediction. And instances have occurred in more modern times, where premature offspring have been put under their mother’s apron, and had the string tied over them during her marriage.” (Vol. II., pp. 74, 75.)