Extracted From:
  A LAW DICTIONARY ..., SIXTH EDITION, 1856
  by John Bouvier, CHILDS & PETERSON, PHILADELPHIA

NATURAL CHILDREN. In the phraseology of the English or American law, natural
children are children born out of wedlock, or bastards, and are distinguished
From legitimate children; but in the language of the civil law, natural are
distinguished from adoptive children, that is, they are the children of the
parents spoken of, by natural procreation....

  2. In Louisiana, illegitimate children who have been acknowledged by their
father, are called natural children; and those whose fathers are unknown are
contradistinguished by the appellation of bastards.... The acknowledgment of an
illegitimate child shall be made by a declaration executed before a notary
public, in the presence of two witnesses, whenever it shall not have been made
in the registering of the birth or baptism of such child. ... Such
acknowledgment shall not be made in favor of the children produced by an
incestuous or adulterous connexion....

  3. Fathers and mothers owe alimony to their natural children, when they are in
need.... In some cases natural children are entitled to the legal succession, of
their natural fathers or mothers....

  4. Natural children owe alimony to their father or mother, if they are in
need, and if they themselves have the means of providing it.... 

  5. The father is of right the tutor of his natural children acknowledged by
him; the mother is of right the tutrix of her natural child not acknowledged by
the father. The natural child, acknowledged by both, has for tutor, first the
father; in default of him, the mother....

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