Natural Child - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition natural-child

Definition :

Natural child, the child in fact, the child of one's body. Some children are both the natural and legitimate offspring of a marriage, i.e., those duly born in wedlock. Some are the legitimate but not the natural offspring of a marriage, i.e., those who are born in wedlock, and never bastardized, although begotten in adultery and in fact the natural children of a stranger. See Shakespeare's King John, Act i., sc. 1. [Indian Succession Act]

Some are natural children only; i.e., bastards, born out of wedlock, and those born in wedlock, who are bastardized, and hence the word is popularly more often used as though it were simply equivalent to bastard. See LEGTIMATION; BASTARD and BASTARDIZE.