Parenting involves a multitude of choices, the decisions of which determine the efficacy of each unique parentage. In his essay "On the affection of fathers for their children," Montainge delineates the harmful decisions of the "common parent" in a thorough description of the actions through which parents frequently channel their instinctual love. In Shakespeare's play King Lear, Gloucester illustrates Montainge's hypothetical common parent in his relationship with his bastard son Edmund. The ramifications of Gloucester's mistakes allow for Edmund's hatred of his own father which he recognizes solely as his simultaneous hatred of the social stigma against bastard children.
             Edmund speaks vehemently against the laws against bastard children in the soliloquy that begins Act 1 Scene 2. The current law prohibits the bastard child from inheriting their father's wealth. Thus, Gloucester will inevitably leave his entire fortune to his older and legitimate son Edgar. Enraged, Edmund plots to deceive his father and half-brother in order to maliciously inherit the wealth allotted to Edgar.
             Because of the English tradition of Primogeniture however, Edgar as the oldest child would have received the wealth regardless of Edmund's legitimacy. Edmund's personal struggle then, symbolizes an impersonal frustration with the current legislation. He queries, "Wherefore should I/ stand in the plague of custom, and permit/ The curiosity of nations to deprive me" (15 2-4). Clearly, Edmund believes the bias against illegitimate children results arbitrarily from inadequate legislative value judgments. The meaningless laws randomly value legitimate blood relations, as if the child of adulterous intimacy cannot assimilate naturally or effectively into the socially accepted familial structure.
             Montainge argues that indeed the bonds between the illegitimate child and its parent are no...