I’ve been out of law school nearly 20 years, but in my domestic law class I seem to recall that some states had an irrebuttable presumption of paternity in the spouse, and others had a rebuttable presumption. This was in the days before the kinds of DNA analysis that exists today.
I have never cared for most legal fictions, and one like this, that the husband is always the father, is particularly troubling because it intrudes on very important family relationships and duties. In these cases truth should be paramount. Might it harm a child to find out that the husband of his mother is not his father? Perhaps, but tragic occurrences happen often, without legal remedy. Husbands should not be made to suffer twice (actually continually for 18 years or more) due to the infidelity of their wives.
If “the best interests of the child” is the deciding factor, then the courts should consider interviewing a number of men, perhaps summoned as potential jurors are, and determine who is most able to provide support for a child whose biological father cannot be determined, or whose mother refuses to disclose his identity.
In case anyone missed my previous posts on this thread, in situations where a husband has, knowingly or not, voluntarily assumed the role of father of the child, having had an opportunity to challenge paternity, that man should be compelled to continue the support he has begun. But where a man questions his paternity from early on (how early to be determined) he should have the right to a fair determination before having to assume a lifelong obligation.
Well obviously if you challenge paternity from day one, that’s a completely different event than being the father for years, then during a divorce or other proceeding years later decide to test/challenge paternity.
After the relationship has developed, there is no doubt severing such responsibilities and relationships is harmful to a child. Every study ever published shows direct correllations between fatherlessness and higher risks of all sorts of problems for children.
Let alone adding to it willful abandonment as the cause for the fatherless state.
You may be correct, I am not a lawyer and do not know family law in all 50 states, and yes the law as all sorts of fictions built in, however part of marriage is parentage, and for the law not to presume the couple are not the parents of children born in wedlock IMHO would create abject chaos.. good for lawyers pocketbooks, bad for society in general. (I’ve always found that direct correllation to be most curious.)
DNA testing has produced new wrinkles in time and societally held issues. Pre DNA, provided you weren’t married any guy could deny paternity to a child he fathered with a woman he was not married too... and alas far far far too many of the male gender did indeed do just that. Now thanks to DNA this guy cannot get away with it.. on the flip side, some fathers are going to find out they aren’t biologically the parents of their percieved offspring.
The reality is, good or ill, we are all humans, and as such, cheating will happen, and will happen by both genders. No, its not right, but if everyone did everything right all the time, we’d not need to worry about so many things that are part of our daily world.
Now, does being able to prove via DNA make you absolved of parental responsibility once a bond has obviously been formed? I cannot in anyway conclude that it does. Many a husband has raised children that they knew were not theirs, before science could give them proof, the overriding bond of marriage does indeed tie one to responsibility to paternity (some states may not have this, but in the general world, this is the presiding principle).
Marriage is not a hook up... its a commitment, its more than a piece of paper and a blood test. I don’t think the law would do anyone favor to say once the bond is formed between child and father, that evidence of paternity to the contrary allows the man to walk is in the best intrest of the child. There is just no way you can get there.
Is it fair? Nope. But like MY FATHER taught me a long time ago..
Suck it up son, you are a man. Life isn’t fair, never was, never will be. You do what’s right becaue its RIGHT, not because its fair, not because its what you want, and not because it makes you feel good. Most times it will make you feel good, and most times it will be fair... other times it’ll feel like someone punched you in the gut and kicked you when you are down. Wheter it makes you feel good, or feel like crap doesn’t matter, you still do what’s Right. That’s what it means to be a Man and not a child.
Alas there are far too many children running around this world today.