Juru00e9 Fiorillo is the author of True Stories of Law & Order and True Stories of Law & Order: SVU. She is also a contributing author of Historyu2019s Greatest Lies and Before They Changed the World.
For much of history and across most of the world, being born out of wedlock—a love child, a bastard—was a serious impediment to success. Illegitimate offspring were subject to neglect, abandonment, disinheritance,...