The Sacred Writing on Metal Plates in the Ancient Mediterranean ... wave of religious austerity that occurred in Sweden from the midseventeenth century, and periodically subsequently, did not have any effect on the illegitimacy rates. custom essay writing Betrothal determined the legitimacy of children born before the religious marriage ceremony took place. Betrothal occurred in various forms outside church regulations; it was legally indispensable that there should be some sort of stable relationship. As early as the 1850s several commentators pointed out that religious revival had caused a decline in the illegitimacy rates in certain areas, but it was subsequently found that these same localities had low rates before the revivals occurred. In societies where the social system does not provide any advantages for the male to marry, and apparently religious injunctions are few or ineffective, illegitimacy is so common that few specific disadvantages accrue to such children or their mothers. Caribbean rates of illegitimacy have often exceeded 50 percent, 33 as neither the man nor the woman had much, if anything, to gain from any formal arrangement beyond the culturally sanctioned consensual union, 34 at any rate until late in life after the child rearing years were over. Late marriage might, in some cases, legitimize children born previously. By Roman Catholic law, all children born of parents who subsequently marry are legitimate.