It is
perhaps not improbable that it was this peculiar custom which gave rise
to the report handed down by the Roman and other historians, that the
ancient inhabitants of Great Britain had their wives in common, or that
it was the foundation of that law of Scotland by which natural children
became legitimatized by subsequent marriage.[3] And as this custom
remained in the Highlands until a very late period, the sanction of
ancient custom was sufficient to induce them to persist in regarding the
offspring of such marriages as legitimate."[4]
It appears, indeed, that as late as the sixteenth century, the issue of
a hand-fast marriage claimed the earldom of Sutherland. The claimant,
according to Sir Robert Gordon, described himself as one lawfully
descended from his father, John, the third earl, because, as he alleged,
"his mother was _hand-fasted_ and fianced to his father;" and his claim
was bought off (which shows that it was not considered as altogether
incapable of being maintained) by Sir Adam Gordon, who had married the
heiress of Earl John. Such, then, was the nature of the peculiar and
temporary connection which gave rise to the apparent anomalies which we
have been considering.
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