Asbjørn Romvig Thomsen:
Adultery in 18th and 19th Century Danish Rural Society

How frequent was adultery in the 18th and 19th centuries? This article shows that adultery was probably a far more widespread phenomenon than it has traditionally been assumed by social historians. Intensive research in the lives of 117 illegitimate children and their parents - all births taking place 1750-1830 in three Jutland parishes - brings out the result that about 20% of the fathers were married and thus adulterers. There is reason to believe that other and less intensive studies reaching a maximum of 5% of married fathers lose a significant part of the adulterers due to incorrect interpretation of the sources. Adultery thus deserves more attention from historians dealing with illegitimacy. On the other hand, married fathers do not seem to have played a significant role in the increase of the number of illegitimate children around 1800. This increase was primarily due to relations between unmarried persons, and must therefore be explained by examining the conditions of unmarried people.