In ancient times, if the parents of unmarried couples didn't agree to their marriage, did they have a private wedding as legal couples? Is the child illegitimate in this case?

In ancient times, we always obeyed our parents' orders and matchmakers' words.

According to Zhou Li, there was an official in charge of marriage affairs in the Zhou Dynasty named Shi Mei. His main duty is to write and issue marriage certificates (called marriage certificates in ancient times) for married men and women.

There are two kinds of ancient marriage documents, namely official marriage documents and folk marriage documents. Folk marriage certificate refers to a marriage contract (also called private contract) signed privately by men and women through an intermediary without going to the government department for marriage registration. Basically, the laws of various dynasties clearly stipulate that marriage must be registered with the relevant government departments and get a marriage certificate. Otherwise, the law will not protect it. However, the governments of different dynasties have different attitudes towards private treaties. Some explicitly prohibit it and refuse to recognize it. Others are regarded as valid documents. In fact, private agreements among the people have never stopped in the societies of various dynasties, and they have always been popular.