Legal language

31 July 2014 "Because, under the English Common Law, a freeman might marry a neife, or a villein a freewoman—the issue ... would follow the condition of the father, but the marriage was lawful. ... But the spurious issue of a neife, though by a free father, would be a villein." Hmhh. This doesn't sound like language in the good ol' U.S.A. of 1842! ...