Her aunt's gossip also reminded Lina of another important difference between this world and the historical dramas she had watched in her previous life. Here, marriage was strictly monogamous, at least in the eyes of the Church and the law. Powerful men could maintain as many mistresses as they pleased, but they could not openly take multiple wives. Nor did the children born outside marriage enjoy the same legal standing as legitimate heirs.
Children born to mistresses were considered illegitimate regardless of whether their fathers acknowledged them. Recognition might allow a child to be brought into the household and raised under the father's protection, but it did not automatically grant the child a family name or inheritance rights. Those whose fathers refused to acknowledge them could end up in far worse circumstances, sometimes growing up as servants in the very households where they had been conceived.
