Illegitimacy: A Societal Perspective takes a comprehensive approach to understanding illegitimacy not merely as a welfare or psychological issue but as a societal phenomenon shaped by complex social, cultural, and institutional factors. The book investigates why certain societies uphold the "principle of legitimacy" with high conformity while others experience significant deviations, with up to 70% of births occurring out of wedlock. Through a multidimensional analytical framework, the study examines how societal norms influence marriage patterns, extramarital sexual behavior, contraceptive use, abortion access, and marriage following conception, providing insights at individual, group, and national levels.

Structured across ten chapters, the book contrasts idealized norms with global behavioral variations, presents cross-national data, reviews existing theories, and develops a new, concatenated theory to explain patterns of illegitimacy. It explores key societal factors such as marriage trends, sexual relationships, contraceptive access, and abortion policies, offering hypotheses supported by diverse data sources. Aimed at sociologists, demographers, and policymakers, this book provides a foundation for future research and practical strategies to understand, predict, and address illegitimacy across different cultural contexts.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1975.