BURDEN OR OPPORTUNITY? ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS IN THE NETHERLANDS AND TAIWAN HILL GATES, JAN KOK, SPING WANG Because people are passionate, and because contraception, abortion, and infanticide played little role in Taiwan and The Netherlands until well into the 20th century, illegitimacy occurred there, although at strikingly different levels of propensity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We compare the rates, changes, and probable motivations for bearing and rearing illegitimates in these two societies at the poles of the Hajnalian dichotomy. In the literature dealing with interregional comparisons of illegitimacy, four factors stand out: kinship systems, courtship patterns, female employment and religion. How important are they for an understanding of Dutch-Taiwanese differentials? Before exploring these factors, we discuss our sources and compare the definitions of illegitimacy in the two countries. Because the status of marriage was not similar, illegitimate births are not perfectly comparable. Next, we examine general levels of illegitimacy and its development over time, trying to explain why Taiwanese unmarried women were so much more likely to give birth out of wedlock than Dutch women. In conclusion, we attribute these differences to family formation and courtship, to the value attached to children and to the economic position of single mothers. The Guidance of Previous Research Previous research, much of it in continental Europe and Britain, shows that the spatial distribution of illegitimacy is not susceptible to easy explanation. Regional differences are important in ratios of illegitimates to total births and to the rates of births per 1000 unmarried women. In 1892, Albert Leffingwell found geographic patterns of considerable significance in 19th century Great Britain as the statistician Jacques Bertillon had seen for France. 1 These differences were not related to urbanization, which was less influential in promoting illegitimacy than might have been expected, urban rates being sometimes the same or lower than rural ones. 2 Differences between regions continue to be more important. 3 Michael Mitterauer’s impressive effort to understand regional variation of European illegitimacy shows that high or low regional levels can only occur when several independent variables reinforce one another. 4 The most important explanatory variables are religion, systems of kinship and family formation, courtship customs, and the availability and character of women's work. Popular culture in the north-western part of the continent was often remarkably tolerant of prenuptial sexuality. In various parts of 19th century western Europe, a minority of first-born children were conceived after the wedding. In many areas of central and northern 1 Leffingwell, Illegitimacy, 54-55. Leffingwell, like many of his contemporaries, mingled biological and cultural heredity in his explanation of regional variation in illegitimacy in a way that now seems racist; excepting this now-outdated interpretation, his early essay stands the test of time well. 2 Knodel and Hochstadt, “Urban and rural illegitimacy”; Laslett, “Introduction”, 30; Blayo, “Illegitimate births”; Van de Walle, “Illegitimacy in France”. 3 Adair, Courtship, Illegitimacy and Marriage, 55. 4 Mitterauer, Ledige Mütter.