ACTA SZEKSZARDIENSIUM - Pécsi Tudományegyetem Illyés Gyula ...

István Varga
resulted from their legal status which bears the following characteristics: 12
1./ Bears his or her mother’s maiden name as a surname.
2./ Gets the mother’s nationality and religion.
3./ His or her residence is determined by the mother’s residence.
4./ Only his mother and his blood relatives are legally related to him.
5./ He or she is entitled for inheritance regarding his or her mother and his or her
blood relatives only.
6./ The mother is the natural and lawful guardian, in cast the mother is underage*
the guardianship authorities shall assign a guardian.
7./ The natural father’s only obligation for the child is to pay the child support fee.
(The father has not family relationship with the child.)
These serious legal disadvantages caused deprivation which affected the lives of the
children concerned, severely limited their opportunities for social mobility, and it is not
an exaggeration to say that, considering their rights, they were second-class citizens.
Their emancipation is expressed by the §19 Act 1946 XXIX according to which : “A child
born out of wedlock is the relative of both the mother and the father and their respective relatives ...
he or she is entitled to or obliged by the rights and duties as if he or she had been born in marriage.”
For further information on illegitimate children see: 13
In my earlier researches I tried to find answer to the question what kind of allowances
system existed for the unmarried mothers and their families. What help could they expect
for raising their children. I examined the social policy situation where the living of the
illegitimate children and their respective mothers were provided by the state indirectly
by means of child support allowance. Besides the low-level care of municipal aid this
child support allowance was the source of living for the mother and child concerned. I
suppose that the presentation of the court’s way of forcing the child support fee, following
the surviving archival sources, shall provide a good clue for getting an insight into the
situation of illegitimate children. The child support litigations, in the first instance, were
held at the district courts, because the litigations related to child support belonged to the
responsibilities of district courts. 14
During my research, I processed the period of 1926-937 of the District Court of
Dombóvár. 15 The quantitative illustration of the research is shown in table 1.
12 Csorna 1929. 127-128., Esztergár 1936. 128-130., Cziglányi 1939. 33-41.
13 Varga 2003, Varga 2006, Varga 2007.
14 CP. 1§. 2. i.
15 Dombóvár is a regional centre in Tolna County, in South Hungary.
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