In law, affiliation (from Latin affiliare, "to adopt as a son") was previously the term to describe legal establishment of paternity.
The mother of a bastard may summon the putative father to petty sessions within 12 months of the birth (or at any later time if he is proved to have contributed to the child's support within 12 months after the birth), and the justices, after hearing evidence on both sides, may, if the mother's evidence be corroborated in some material particular, adjudge the man to be the putative father of the child, and order him to pay a sum not exceeding five shillings a week for its maintenance, together with a sum for expenses incidental to the birth, or the funeral expenses, if it has died before the date of order, and the costs of the proceedings.
When a bastard child, whose mother has not obtained an order, becomes chargeable to the parish, the guardians may proceed against the putative father for a contribution.
No agreement on the part of the woman to take a sum down in a discharge of the liability of the father is a bar to the making of an affiliation order.
France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Russia, Serbia and the Canton of Geneva provide no means of inquiry into the paternity of an illegitimate child, and consequently all support of the child falls upon the mother; on the other hand, Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the majority of the Swiss cantons provide for an inquiry into the paternity of illegitimate children, and the law casts a certain amount of responsibility upon the father.