Short answer. Yes. Family Code Article 181 says the legitimation of a child who died before the parents' marriage still benefits that child's own descendants. So if your child passed away before you and their other parent married, your grandchildren through that child can still receive the benefit of legitimation.
What the law says
The legitimation of children who died before the celebration of the marriage shall benefit their descendants.
Family Code, Article 181 — Legitimation Benefits the Descendants of a Deceased Child. Read the full provision →
What Article 181 provides
The article is a single, direct sentence: the legitimation of children who died before the celebration of the marriage shall benefit their descendants. It addresses precisely this situation — a child who could have been legitimated by the parents' later marriage, but who died before that marriage actually happened. Rather than letting the child's death close off the benefit entirely, the article passes it down to that child's own descendants. It does not, on its own text, explain how the process of legitimation itself works; that is a separate question this article assumes.
Why this provision needed to exist
Without it, a reasonable but wrong assumption would be that legitimation requires the child to still be alive when the parents marry, since it is the child's status that changes. Article 181 heads that off: the child's death before the marriage does not defeat the benefit, it just moves it one generation down. The descendants step into the position the child would have occupied had they lived to see the marriage take place.
How far "descendants" reaches
The article says descendants without limiting the word to grandchildren specifically or to any particular number of generations. Read plainly, that covers grandchildren, and would extend further down the line if applicable — the text itself does not draw a cut-off. What it does not spell out is any additional procedure or documentation this situation might require beyond the ordinary legitimation process; that mechanics question is outside what this article settles.
What the benefit consists of, and how long it can be attacked
The value of Article 181 comes from what legitimation carries with it. Article 179 provides that legitimated children enjoy the same rights as legitimate children, and Article 180 that the effects of legitimation retroact to the time of the child's birth. Retroactivity is the part that makes this work across a death: the status is treated as having existed from birth, so it is capable of passing down to the descendants of a child who did not live to see the marriage. Article 182 supplies the counterweight — legitimation may be impugned, but only by those prejudiced in their rights, and only within five years from the time their cause of action accrues. So the benefit is not open to challenge by anyone at any time; both who may attack it and when are limited.
What you would need to establish this
The practical work is proving the chain: that the deceased child was in fact yours and the other parent's, that the child died before the marriage, and that the grandchildren claiming the benefit descend from that child. Birth and death certificates, and the marriage certificate showing the date of the marriage relative to the child's death, are the documents this will turn on. Bring them together and have a lawyer walk you through how legitimation is actually established in your case.
Related provisions
- Family Code, Article 181 — Legitimation Benefits the Descendants of a Deceased Child
- Family Code, Article 179 — Legitimated Children Enjoy the Same Rights
- Family Code, Article 180 — Legitimation Retroacts to Birth
- Family Code, Article 182 — Who May Impugn a Legitimation