Commonwealth v. Rosenblatt

At the trial of the defendant, upon this complaint which charged him with failing to contribute reasonably to the support of an illegitimate child, the mother, a married woman, was allowed to testify that her husband had deserted her more than three years before the child was begotten, that she had not seen him since and that the defendant was the father of the child. There was also some evidence tending to show that the husband whs in Europe.

It has been said that apart from statute parents are not permitted to give testimony to make spurious the issue of the mother born in lawful wedlock.…