stance, Frenssen's well-known novel
_Hilligenlei_ (_Holyland_).

[63] In most countries illegitimacy is decreasing; in Germany it is
steadily increasing, alike in rural and urban districts. Illegitimate
births are, however, more numerous in the cities than in the country. Of
the constituent states of the German Empire, the illegitimate birth-rate
is lowest in Prussia, highest in Saxony and Bavaria. In Munich 27 per
cent of the births are illegitimate. (The facts are clearly brought out
in an article by Dr. Arthur Gruenspan in the _Berliner Tagblatt_ for
January 6, 1911, reproduced in _Die Neue Generation_, July, 1911.) Thus,
in Prussia, while the total births between 1903 and 1908,
notwithstanding a great increase in the population, have only increased
2.6 per cent, the illegitimate births have increased as much as 11.1 per
cent. The increase is marked in nearly all the German States. It is
specially marked in Saxony; here the proportion of illegitimate births
to the total number of births was, in 1903, 12.51 per cent, and in 1908
it had already risen to 14.40 per cent. In Berlin it is most marked;
here it began in 1891, when there were nearly 47,000 legitimate births;
by 1909, however, the legitimate births had fallen to 38,000, a decrease
of 19.4 per cent. But illegitimate births rose during the same period
from nearly 7000 to over 9000, an increase of 35 per cent. The
proportion of illegitimate births to the total births is now over 20 per
cent, so that to every four legitimate children there is rather more
than one illegitimate child. It may be said that this is merely due to
an increasing proportion of unmarried women. That, however, is not the
case. The marriage-rate is on the whole rising, and the average age of
women at marriage is becoming lower rather than higher. Gruenspan
considers that this increase in illegitimacy is likely to continue, and
he is inclined to attribute it less to economic than to
social-psychological causes.

[64] I have discussed this point in _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_,
Vol. VI, "Sex in Relation to Society," chap. XII.

[65] It is remarkable that in early times in Spain the laws recognized
concubinage (_barragania_) as almost equal to marriage, and as
conferring equal rights on the child, even on the sons of the clergy,
who could thus inherit from their fathers by right of the privileges
accorded to the concubine or _barragana_. _Barragania_, however, was not
real marriage, and