A bastard is a child born out of wedlock. These days there are plenty of bastards running around. People are less concerned with getting married before they have kids. People are less concerned with getting married at all, really.
One of my closest friends has two bastard children who are adorable and whom I love deeply. She had the first one at nineteen and the second one at twenty-two. She’s with the father and they’re going on twelve years together. They never got married and neither of them really seems to care about the piece of paper that many people desire which seems to represent a certain level of commitment. They are both incredibly committed to their children and to each other. They aren’t legally married but they’re way more married than most married couples I know. And their children are way more functional and healthy than lots of non-bastard children.
There has been a myth out there running rampant for decades that marriage is necessary within a family. I find this to be ridiculous, simply because plenty of people get engaged after having known each other for just a few months. Any idiot over the age of eighteen can get married and they don’t have to jump through any kinds of hoops for that piece of paper. Sure they have to fill out a few forms and pay a hundred bucks or whatever the price is, but that’s really all that needs doing. You don’t even have to have witnesses who know you, just whoever is working at the courthouse that day.
The term ‘bastard’ is often used as an insult and is usually meant to refer to someone who’s being an asshole. Actually, it goes further than that. It’s meant to label someone as a bad person. It’s strange that we have moved this term through this specific evolution, from the word that is used to mean ‘child born out of wedlock’ to ‘a bad human’. How have we gotten to this place?
I’m grateful that the word has had a shift in meaning. I don’t want my friend’s daughters to ever feel strange about how they came into this world. It’s like those religious nutcases who believe that when a baby is born it needs to be baptized in order to be welcomed into ‘god’s community’, because historically to be pushed through a woman’s twat was considered a sinful act. Just being born resulted in a sinned baby. We live in a sick sick culture. There is nothing sacred about marriage that somehow makes the children of married couples ‘better’. There is nothing better than chocolate cake.
1. My dad’s a fucking bastard. He cheated on my mom and left her for another woman. Now she’s carrying his child. His bastard child.
2. It would be rad to be born out of wedlock. There’s less pressure on you to live some sort of status-quo life. I’d give anything to be a bastard. If only my parents weren’t crazy Christians.
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