The goal of this article is to answer the question as to what infant care might have looked like in Greco‑Roman antiquity. To obtain an answer, we analyze Soranus of Ephesus’s Gynecology – a source from the second century AD, which serves as a compendium of knowledge on ancient obstetrics. In the article, I consider the recommendations made by the physician regarding infant care and who might have been responsible for carrying these out. I also consider whether the belief that ancient people did not form strong attachments to their children due to high infant mortality rates is justified.

The aim of this article is to present how the hagiographic context influenced the image of the child and to demonstrate the ways in which the experiences of young children were portrayed in the late medieval period. The fifteenth century miracles of the Krakow saints are analyzed in terms of the child’s relationship with its parents, the immediate environment, other children, as well as the ways in which young children experienced pain, suffering, and illness. Miracle  arratives fulfilled important functions for the socjety of the time, shaping and depicting the socio‑cultural attitudes of the adult world towards children in a social, moral, and religious  context.

Supplications for dispensation from illegitymacy (de defectu natalium) from the ecclesiastical province of Gniezno to the Apostolic Penitentiary in the fifteenth century only reveal part of the problem of functioning in society for people born from non‑canonical unions. The petitioners were clergy or candidates for this estate. Boniface VIII reserved the right to grant dispensations de defectu natalium to the pope, and the handling of supplications was taken over by the  postolic Penitentiary, which dealt with all exclusively papal rights and responsibilities. Analyzing these supplications allows us to examine not only the functioning of papal administration but also to indicate certain mechanisms of society’s functioning. In total, we know of 95  upplications from the province of Gniezno. This is a small group of cases compared to all European supplications de defectu natalium from the fifteenth century. It is also a small part of Polish and Lithuanian supplications (9%). In this case, the European average is higher:  upplications de defectu natalium accounted for almost 20% of all European cases. Half of the cases from the Gniezno diocese concerned supplications from sons of clergy, while among the cases of sons of secular men, the majority were supplications from petitioners born from the relationship of two free persons. However, we can assume that some of these unions were perceived in society as marriages. Among the supplications from the province of Gniezno, we also note a lower percentage of marital cases (de matrimonialibus) compared to the European average. Legal birth was the result of the parents’ entering into a legal marriage according to canon law. In the province of Gniezno, we observe a lack of rigor in adhering to all canonical rules; also on the part of the local church. Children born from such socially accepted  elationships also had to rectify their birth with a papal dispensation.

The article examines the issue of illegitimate birth (defectus natalium) among clergy in late medieval Prussia. As one of the irregularities under canon law (irregularitas), it posed a barrier to ordination. However, papal dispensations offered a potential solution, typically granted by the Apostolic Penitentiary. This study primarily focuses on dispensations obtained through this route. The analysis of twenty-one supplications from Prussian dioceses spanning 1431–1523 reveals a significantly lower number compared to the rest of Europe, which was likely influenced by Prussia’s peripheral status, church structures, legal awareness, and the scope of interactions with the Holy See. The article also explores the social demographics of those seeking dispensations, noting a prevalence of scholars. Additionally, it examines the status of parents of illegitimate clergy candidates. Seven of them were from lay relationships of single state (solutus/soluta), two from relationships of a man of single state and a married woman (solutus/coniugata), while 12 were descendants of priests. The discussion of illegitimate births of clergymen and their efforts to obtain dispensations is enriched by a detailed examination of the case of brothers Albert and Kirstan from Ostrowite in Gdańsk Pomerania, sons of a local parson who sought dispensation for ordination. In 1380, they successfully obtained dispensation from the Apostolic Penitentiary, later approved by the Archbishop of Gniezno as their proper ordinary. The article includes two documents from the State Archives in Toruń related to this case, contributing significantly due to the scarcity of such sources, exacerbated by the absence of preserved files from the Apostolic Penitentiary during this period.

The life of Juana Dantisca (1527–1601), the daughter of the Polish diplomat and humanist Ioannes Dantiscus (Jan Dantyszek), later bishop of Chełmno (Kulm) and Warmia (Ermland), and his Spanish lover Isabel Delgada, serves as an example of the atypical fate of an illegitimate child. Initially supported by her father and even a source of pride to him, Juana was ultimately abandoned by him. Nevertheless, she received a thorough upbringing and education at the expense of Diego Gracian de Alderete, a Spanish humanist and courtier, whom she later married, and with whom she had numerous children who belonged to the Spanish secular and ecclesiastical elites. Talented descendants of the Gracian‑Dantisco family held prestigious  ositions in the court of the Spanish monarchs until the early eighteenth century. Juana herself maintained a close friendship with St. Teresa of Avila, and one of her sons, Jeronimo Gracian‑Dantisco, became Teresa’s confessor and collaborator, as well as the first provincial of the Discalced Carmelites in Spain.

The article focuses on the alleged affair between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) and Magdalena Hofdemel (nee Pokorny, 1766 – after 1804), a Czech pianist and violinist, which purportedly resulted in her becoming pregnant and giving birth to an illegitimate child.  onsequently, Magdalena’s husband, Franz Hofdemel (circa 1755–1791), a Viennese lawyer and court chancery clerk, out of jealousy, is said to have poisoned Mozart. This issue has long animated Mozart lovers. The community of writers on this topic can be divided into four groups. Some question the affair and thus Mozart’s poisoning. Conversely, others support the idea, with some even presenting intriguing additional information. Meanwhile, a third group argued that neither confirmation nor denial is possible, while some simply report the event without taking a stance. It can be said that the discussion presented in the article between supporters and opponents is often emotional, and evidence is generally not provided. It must be mphasized that there is no evidence for either the alleged affair or Mozart’s poisoning by Hofdemel.

This article aims to analyse the case of the most famous female infanticide in the German‑speaking cultural area in the eighteenth century. Susanna Margaretha Brandt, probably the prototype of Margaret in Goethe’s Faust. To do this, it was necessary to outline the cultural and, above all, the legal background to the tort of infanticide during the late German Enlightenment. A careful reading of the trial reports reveals the religious dimension of the whole process, which becomes the proper focus to consider.

The article presents the issue of extramarital births in the parish of Nowy Korczyn in the years 1751–1800. The analyses were conducted using an aggregate method. In the birth records of the Nowy Korczyn parish, in the second half of the eighteenth century, 179 baptisms of illegitimate children were recorded, constituting 4.4% of all births. Such a percentage of births out of wedlock is similar to the results obtained for other urban‑rural parishes. Illegitimate births occurred significantly more often in the urban than in the rural part of the parish. In the Nowy Korczyn parish, there was a clear concentration of conceptions of illegitimate children in the spring and summer months. Twin births constituted a significantly larger percentage among illegitimate births than among legitimate births. Birth records do not contain too much information about the parents of illegitimate children, so the description of the social environment of people having such offspring is quite difficult. Most often, the data recorded in the records are limited to the name and surname of the mother. Fathers remain essentially anonymous in the records. It is known that a significant group of mothers of illegitimate children were migrants, but their territorial affiliation in the records remains a mystery. The baptismal names given to illegitimate children did not differ from the names given to legitimate offspring, although it is known that the parish clergy often stigmatized illegitimate children by giving tchem unusual and rarely occurring names. The selection of appropriate godparents for a child played an important role at that time. However, given that the social environment of the parents of illegitimate children has not been precisely identified, it is not possible to analyze their selection. Giving birth to an illegitimate child did not condemn a woman to lead a solitary life, as some of them later entered into marital relationships. The records also noted that some women had more than one child out of wedlock.

The article presents the position of the child in the family in the light of the General National Law for the Prussian States from 1794, seen from a historical‑pedagogical perspective. It discusses the rights and duties of children, the extent of parental authority, and the situation of children born in morganatic marriages, children of divorced persons, illegitimate children, adopted children, and so‑called wards, i.e., orphaned or abandoned children without parental care.

The analyses conducted reveal a feudal mentality’s influence on the perception of the child through the lens of their position in social stratification and their birth circumstances. Prussian law clearly favored children born within legitimate marriages at the expense of offspring from other types of relationships. It also upheld a patriarchal family model with the father’s redominant influence on the direction of a child’s education and future.

The goal of the article is to demonstrate how illegitimate children were portrayed in Czech literature at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To illustrate this phenomenon, the works of four Czech authors are used: playwright Gabriela Preissova and prose writers Božena Vikova‑Kuněticka, Růžena Svobodova, and Amalie Vrbova, who published under the male pseudonym Jiři Sumin. The analysis of individual literary works is preceded by an extensive introduction, in which, using the example of the Austro‑Hungarian Empire, the unequal legal situation of illegitimate children at the end of the “long” nineteenth century is presented and explained. Additionally, briefly discussed are issues related to illegitimate birth, such as infanticide and the availability of marriage.

The origins of the Municipal Educational Home, opened in Łodź in 1920, date back to the period of World War I, when many social and charitable organizations, as well as private individuals, provided material and health‑related support to the youngest residents of Łodź. These efforts included the establishment of the Shelter for Foundlings, referred to as the “Nursery,” which provided care for babies and older children. It was founded at the end of 1914 by the St. Stanislaus Kostka Shelters Society (Towarzystwo Schronisk św. Stanisława Kostki), operating within one of the Roman Catholic parishes in Łodź. The caregivers included nuns from the Congregation of the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (Zgromadzenie Siostr Służebniczek Najświętszej Maryi Panny Niepokalanie Poczętej). In 1920, the house was taken over by the Łodź government, and its name was changed to the First Municipal Educational Home for Infants. Under the supervision of the Social Welfare Department of the Council of the City of Łodź, the institution accepted babies as well as older children who were completely or partially without parental care, including abandoned children, children left to their own fate, orphans, and half‑orphans. By the mid‑1930s, the Home could accommodate 170 children. The purpose of this article is to present the living conditions of abandoned children who were found and taken to the Municipal Educational Home, as well as the organizational aspects of operating an institution of this kind, including the daily work of the staff. The author aims to explore the reasons for and circumstances of child abandonment, the type and scope of care provided to Home residents, and a new form of care for mothers and their children, namely, accepting mothers together with their babies into the Home. According to the city authorities, this solution was intended to reduce the number of abandoned children. The analysis of children’s living conditions in the Municipal Educational Home for Infants was conducted based on source materials, archive materials, and journals.

Gabriel Wiktor Rola‑Rożniecki (born November 12, 1816, in Warsaw) was one of the most versatile Polish composers of the second half of the nineteenth century. He created various musical works: operas, operettas, ballets, oratorios, songs, masses, psalms, cantatas, symphonies, and string quartets. In the literature, he is presented as the son of the president of the Warsaw Government Theatres, cavalry general Aleksander Antoni Rola‑Rożniecki. However, archival sources contradict this, indicating that the musician was the biological son of a veteran of the Napoleonic campaigns, Lieutenant Ludwik Leduchowski, and Ludwika de Boyer Vernon, formerly Rynkiewicz, later Leduchowska. In 1838, his mother married General A. Rożniecki, and as a result of this marriage, her four sons, who until then bore the surname Leduchowski, were officially recognized as Rożniecki’s children. Rożniecki even asserted in the parish office of the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw that he was their biological father. Between 1844 and 1847, through court judgments, the stepfather disinherited the aforementioned sons. Gabriel studied at a Jesuit college in Paris and then graduated from the Polytechnic School in Palaiseau, simultaneously attending music studies and supporting himself by playing the cello. In 1839, he returned to Warsaw, performing as a singer on amateur stages. In 1844, to continue his musical education, he traveled to Rome, then in 1845 to Berlin, and subsequently to Vienna, developing his musical talent under the guidance of Henry Charles Litolff and Franz Liszt. In August 1846, he went to Rome, and in January 1847, he joined the St. Cecilia Music Academy there. Sought by the Russian authorities for avoiding conscription and leaving the country without permission, facing the risk of losing his nobility, in 1848 he enlisted in the foreign legion, fighting under the French flag during the conquest of Algeria. In 1849, he returned to Rome, co‑founding the Mickiewicz Legion. He was one of its most steadfast soldiers, staying close to the poet, who placed great trust in him. He participated in campaigns in Lombardy, Piedmont, and Tuscany, rising to the rank of second lieutenant. In April 1849, he fought alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi in defense of republican Rome. After the city’s capitulation and the disarming of the Legion, he went to Florence, starting efforts to return to Warsaw. He succeeded only  after 9 years. He debuted as a conductor in September 1858, and in December, he took over the duties of the ballet orchestra director at the Warsaw Opera. Soon after, he became the conductor of the orchestra of the Warsaw Government Theatres. In January 1864, he married the former prima ballerina Marianna Aleksandra Freytag, with whom he had three children. After the premature death of his first son (Gabriel Junior) and his wife, in 1874, he opened a steam dyeing plant in Warsaw’s Praga district. Despite being equipped with the latest machinery used by such establishments in Western Europe at that time, it led to financial failure, contributing to the loss of savings and condemning the Rożnieckis (Gabriel raised his daughter Jozefa Teofila and son Henryk) to a life of poverty. Years of health problems led to his death on September 3, 1887, in Warsaw, due to complications from kidney stone surgery. 

In the Second Polish Republic, the legal status of illegitimate children was still regulated by the legislation of the invading states. Mostly, these were the regulations of the great civil codifications of the nineteenth century: The Napoleonic Code, The ABGB, The BGB, and also of the Civil Code of the Kingdom of Poland or of volume ten of The Digest of Laws of the Russian Empire. The author describes the legal status regarding the subject matter, including not only similarities but also differences among the legislations. The common feature of the regulations discussed was far‑reaching discrimination against illegitimate children in family law and inheritance law. Therefore, the Codification Commission of the Second Polish Republic faced not only the unification of the civil law, including family and inheritance law, in order to suspend the binding legislations of the invaders, but also to equalize the legal status of illegitimate children and legitimate children. Unfortunately, it was not possible to finalize the codification work on family law and inheritance law in the Second Polish Republic. However, these efforts were taken into consideration due to their later usage in the process of unification and codification of the civil law after the Second World War.

In the early years of People’s Poland, the field of inheritance was governed by the legislation of the partitioning states, as the legislative efforts on civil law, including inheritance law, undertaken in the Second Polish Republic, did not yield the expected results. The first legal act regulating inheritance issues in People’s Poland was the Decree on Inheritance Law from 1946. According to this decree, illegitimate children could inherit under the same rules as children born within marriage if they were entitled to inheritance as a result of their parents’ marriage, recognized as such or the equivalent of such. The significant change in the legal status of illegitimate children in inheritance matters came with the adoption of the Family Code in 1950, which took effect on October 1, 1950. Consequently, illegitimate children and children born within marriage were granted equal rights in the field of inheritance. From then on, an illegitimate child had the same inheritance rights as children born within marriage from both their mother and father, as well as their relatives. The Civil Code of 1964, currently in force, does not differentiate the legal status of children based on whether they were born within or outside marriage. Illegitimate children inherit under the same rules as children born within marriage.

The article analyzes the situation of illegitimate children in Basque culture from a historical perspective. To do this, the author examines the place of parenthood in Basque value systems and customs, as well as the position of women, including unwed mothers, and perceptions of illegitimate children, both in the past and the present. Attention is also drawn to the nature of institutional care for abandoned children. Based on field research, the author presents the fate of a specific abandoned child. Additionally, the text addresses the issue of newborn trafficking and illegal adoptions in Spain, as well as the cultural changes that have occurred in this country and in the Basque region in the twentieth and twenty‑first centuries.

Efficient socialization of orphans and unwanted children remains one of the pertinent social problems in modern Ukraine. Children raised in orphanages and boarding schools often struggle with socialization, finding it difficult to resolve conflicts that arise in their interactions with others, and they may exhibit more primitive forms of communication. This article explores the issue of orphanhood in Ukraine through a historical lens, demonstrating its enduring relevance throughout the country’s history, and they argue that successfully addressing this problem can have a positive impact on the socio‑political development of the state. Throughout the study, the domestic experience in addressing the issue of unwanted children and orphans is examined, going back to the establishment and development of Kyivan Rus, when the concept of providing assistance, care, and education to orphans in church schools and monasteries became widespread. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an official state policy regarding orphans and unwanted children had developed. Charitable and church guardianship gradually transitioned to a state system of institutions, which became known as orphanages. It is demonstrated that mass homelessness was not a widespread issue in Ukraine until the early twentieth century; however, it became prevalent in the 1920s due to factors such as the civil war, the First World War, the 1921 drought, and crop failures from 1922 to 1924. The state assumed custody of children and responsibility for their care, leading to the establishment of new specialized institutions for children without parental care. After the Second World War, the existing system of state protection for orphans and unwanted children in Ukraine saw minimal change and failed to provide suitable living and developmental conditions for children. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a new wave of child homelessness emerged amidst the collapse of the social system of the former Soviet state. Unemployment rates soared, and significant social stratification occurred within the population. Statistical data indicates an increase in the number of children deprived of parental care in Ukraine from 2003 to 2006. However, in subsequent years, with improvements in the country’s socio‑economic situation and the efforts of relevant state bodies, progress began to be made in addressing the issue of children deprived of parental care. Nevertheless, new social challenges emerged, notably the widespread phenomenon of “social orphanhood.”Thus, throughout the history of the independent Ukrainian state, the situation in the field of child protection has been complicated by existing political and socio‑economic challenges in Ukraine. As of 2019, the number of orphans and children deprived of parental care registered with the state was 68,877 children. It is concluded that this issue poses a significant challenge to the socio‑political stability of the state and requires further steps to address it. The factors contributing to the increase in the number of orphans are primarily related to changes in social and family values, rather than solely to economic factors. Despite efforts by the authorities, by the end of 2021, the social protection system for children in Ukraine did not show a significant decrease in the number of orphans and orphanages. The existing mechanisms for providing social services to families facing difficult circumstances cannot currently be considered sufficiently effective, necessitating further work in this direction.