The age of marriage without parental consent was 30 for men and 25 for women. This is why you see so many men marrying at age 30 and women around 25. Before that the parent(s) or eldest family member had to give consent. You also had to have the money to pay State/Church to get married and the local ruler also could deny marriage for any reason he/she wanted to, I believe. Those in the military needed to get consent, and that was frequently denied. If you belonged to one of the craft guilds, they may also have dictated who you were supposed/allowed to marry. It's not unusual to see people (especially the poor) not get married, or to do so secretly (especially if they belonged to a "heretical" religious sect). As far as I know "fils natural" means the same thing as illegitimate. I can't recall seeing any of the French records record anything in French other than "fils natural", or the equivalent for girls, for illegitimate ("unehelich" is German, not French). But that just be anecdotal evidence on my part and could easily vary from one recorder to another. It was customary to legitimize all children of a couple upon marriage. It was, in fact, probably required. You'd want to research that, though. As far as the Church "really" frowning upon it. I think that is more modern rewriting of history. It was common, plus you had lots of wars, and raping of women and resulting illegitimate births from that. Certainly, marriage was preferred, because it meant more money for the church state, and other benefits (from a church state viewpoint). Plus a bastard son might not be permitted to marry in the church without paying a, probably very hefty, fee to "legitimize" himself. Brian On Sat, July 16, 2011 6:37 pm, Chris Bauman wrote: > Steve, > I'm sure someone will have a more complete answer than I can provide, but > I have seen similar notions in German Catholic church records. "Fils > natural" translates (I believe) to "natural child"--a child born outside > of marriage. The birth register I saw listed a child as "illegitimate" > ("unehelich"), with both the father's and mother's names listed. But there > was a notation to the record (in the margin area) indicating that the > birth had been made "legitimate" by the parents' subsequent marriage. I > also located a web page (in French) talking about "fils natural"-- > ...