petty sessions within twelve months of the birth (or at any later time if he is proved to have contributed to the child’s support within twelve months after the birth), and the justices, after hearing evidence on both sides, may, if the mother’s evidence be corroborated in some material particular, adjudge the man to be the putative father of the child, and order him to pay a sum not exceeding five shillings a week for its maintenance, together with a sum for expenses incidental to the birth, or the funeral expenses, if it has died before the date of order, and the costs of the proceedings. An order ceases to be valid after the child reaches the age of thirteen, but the justices may in the order direct the payments to be continued until the child is sixteen years of age. An appeal to quarter sessions is open to the defendant, and a further appeal on questions of law to the King’s Bench by rule nisi or certiorari. Should the child afterwards become chargeable to the parish, the sum due by the father may be received by the parish officer. When a bastard child, whose mother has not obtained an order, becomes chargeable to the parish, the guardians may proceed against the putative father for a contribution. Any woman who is single, a widow, or a married woman living apart from her husband, may make an application for a summons, and it is immaterial where the child is begotten, provided it is born in England. An application for a summons may be made before the birth of the child, but in this case the statement of the mother must be in the form of a sworn deposition. The defendant must be over fourteen years of age. No agreement on the part of the woman to take a sum down in discharge of the liability of the father is a bar to the making of an affiliation order. In the case of twins it is usual to make separate applications and obtain separate summonses. The Summary Jurisdiction Act 1879 makes due provision for the enforcement of an order of affiliation. In the case of soldiers an affiliation order cannot be enforced in the usual way, but by the Army Act 1881, if an order has been made against a soldier of the regular forces, and a copy of such order be sent to the secretary of state, he may order a portion of the soldier’s pay to be retained. There is no such special legislation with regard to sailors in the royal navy.
In the British colonies, and in the states of the United States (with the exception of California, Idaho, Missouri, Oregon, Texas and Utah), there is some procedure (usually termed filiation) akin to that described above, by means of which a mother can obtain a contribution to the support of her illegitimate child from the putative father. The amount ordered to be paid may subsequently be increased or diminished (1905; 94 N.Y. Supplt. 372). On the continent of Europe, however, the legislation of the various countries differs rather widely. France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Russia, Servia and the canton of Geneva provide no means of inquiry into the paternity of an illegitimate child, and consequently all support of the child falls upon the mother; on the other hand, Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the majority of the Swiss cantons provide for an inquiry into the paternity of illegitimate children, and the law casts a certain amount of responsibility upon the father.
Affiliation, in France, is a term applied to a species of adoption by which the person adopted succeeds equally with other heirs to the acquired, but not to the inherited, property of the deceased. (See Adoption. Also Bastard; Poor Laws.)
Authorities.—Saunders, Law and Practice of Orders of Affiliation; Lushington, Law of Affiliation and Bastardy; Little, Poor Law Statutes. (T. A. I.)
AFFINITY (Lat. affinitas, relationship by marriage, from affinis, bordering on, related to; finis, border, boundary), in law, as distinguished from consanguinity (q.v.), the term applied to the relation which each party to a marriage, the husband and wife, bears to the kindred of the other. Affinity is usually described as of three kinds. (1) Direct: that relationship which subsists between the husband and his wife’s relations by blood or between the wife and the husband’s relations by blood. The marriage having made them one person, the blood relations of each are held as related by affinity in the same degree to the one spouse as by consanguinity to the other. But the relation is only with the married parties themselves, and does not bring those in affinity with them in affinity with each other; so a wife’s sister has no affinity to her husband’s brother. This is (2) Secondary affinity. (3) Collateral affinity is the relationship subsisting between the husband and the relations of his wife’s relations.
The subject is chiefly important from the matrimonial prohibitions by which the canon law has restricted relations by affinity. Taking the table of degrees within which marriage is prohibited on account of consanguinity, the rule has been thus extended to affinity, so that wherever relationship to a man himself would be a bar to marriage, relationship to his deceased wife will be the same bar, and vice versa on the husband’s decease.
Briefly, direct affinity is a bar to marriage. This rule has been founded chiefly on interpretations of the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. Formerly by law in England, marriages within the degrees of affinity were not absolutely null, but they were liable to be annulled by ecclesiastical process during the lives of both parties; in other words, the incapacity was only a canonical, not a civil, disability. By the Marriage Act 1835 all marriages of this kind not disputed before the passing of the act were declared absolutely valid, while all subsequent to it were declared null. This rendered null in England, and not merely voidable, a marriage with a deceased wife’s sister or niece. (See Consanguinity; Marriage.)
AFFINITY, CHEMICAL, the property or relation in virtue of which dissimilar substances are capable of entering into chemical combination with each other. (See Chemistry; Chemical Action; Valency.)
AFFIRMATION (from Lat. affirmare, to assert), the declaration that something is true; in logic, a positive judgment, the union of the subject and predicate of a proposition; particularly, in law, the solemn declaration allowed to those who conscientiously object to taking an oath. (See Oath.)
AFFRAY, in law, the fighting of two or more persons in a public place to the terror (à l’ effroi) of the lieges. The offence is a misdemeanour at English common law, punishable by fine and imprisonment. A fight in private is an assault and battery, not an affray. As those engaged in an affray render themselves also liable to prosecution for Assault (q.v.), Unlawful Assembly (see Assembly, Unlawful), or Riot (q.v.), it is for one of these offences that they are usually charged. Any private person may, and constables and justices must, interfere to put a stop to an affray. In the United States the English common law as to affray applies, subject to certain modifications by the statutes of particular states (Bishop, Amer. Crim. Law, 8th ed., 1892, vol. i. § 535). The Indian Penal Code (sect. 159) adopts the English definition of affray, with the substitution of “actual disturbance of the peace” for “causing terror to the lieges.” The Queensland Criminal Code of 1899 (sect. 72) defines affray as taking part in a fight in a public highway or taking part in a fight of such a nature as to alarm the public in any other place to which the public have access. This definition is taken from that in the English Criminal Code Bill of 1880, cl. 96. Under the Roman Dutch law in force in South Africa, affray falls within the definition of vis publica.
AFFRE, DENIS AUGUSTE (1793–1848), archbishop of Paris, was born at St Rome, in the department of Tarn, on the 27th of September 1793. He was educated for the priesthood at St Sulpice, where in 1818 he became professor of dogmatic theology. After filling a number of ecclesiastical offices, he was elevated to the archbishopric of Paris in 1840. Though opposed to the government of Louis Philippe, he took no part in politics, but devoted himself to his pastoral work. His episcopate, however, is chiefly remembered owing to its tragic close. During the insurrection of June 1848 the archbishop was led to believe that by his personal interference peace might be restored between the soldiery and the insurgents. Accordingly, in spite of the warning of General Cavaignac, he mounted the barricade at the entrance to the Faubourg St Antoine, bearing a green branch as sign of peace. He had spoken only a few words, however, when the insurgents, hearing some shots, and fancying they
