Legitimacy
Today, most people’s attitude has changed, and the laws have changed so that people born to unmarried parents are not discriminated against unfairly. In the United States, people are no longer described as “illegitimate” but as “born out of wedlock” (“wedlock” means “marriage”). In the United Kingdom, the idea of illegitimacy ended by a 1991 law. Fathers now have a responsibility to their children, even those born out of wedlock. Many religions still maintain that sex outside marriage is a sin, but they no longer say that the child lives in a state of sin.