Art. 273. Legitimation shall take effect from the time of the child's birth.
DISCUSSION:
The above article is full o meaning and substance. The act of legitimation produces effect as of the child's birth. For legal purposes, the child was born a legitimate child. Under the old civil code, legitimation took effect from the date of marriage, based on the legal fiction that a legitimate child, although in fact born before the marriage is considered born after marriage, without regard to the time of conception. The code commission regarded the interest the child as of more paramount consideration than the legal fiction, and amended the article in its present form. The Code Commission also considered that the old provision absurdly gave the child two distinct personalities in this respect, to wit, that the child is legitimate after marriage, but it was illegitimate before marriage. Under this law, a legitimated child has a right to participate in a succession opened before the marriage because legitimation retro-acts to the time of the child's birth.
The above article is full o meaning and substance. The act of legitimation produces effect as of the child's birth. For legal purposes, the child was born a legitimate child. Under the old civil code, legitimation took effect from the date of marriage, based on the legal fiction that a legitimate child, although in fact born before the marriage is considered born after marriage, without regard to the time of conception. The code commission regarded the interest the child as of more paramount consideration than the legal fiction, and amended the article in its present form. The Code Commission also considered that the old provision absurdly gave the child two distinct personalities in this respect, to wit, that the child is legitimate after marriage, but it was illegitimate before marriage. Under this law, a legitimated child has a right to participate in a succession opened before the marriage because legitimation retro-acts to the time of the child's birth.
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