"This is the first historical and sociological examination of bastardy ... during a four hundred year span ... the authors find: (1) distinct temporal and regional patterns in illegitimacy, as regular as those of fertility and mortality, and they suggest that fluctuations reflect changes in the efficacy of marriage; (2) a rise in the proportion of illegitimate births interrupted by two interludes of decline; (3) little impact of urbanization and industrialization on bastardy rates in Western Europe." Cf. fly-leaf of paper cover.