With so many men apparently plausibly claiming to be the father and so little treatment of the subject of women deceiving men about the paternity of their children, interested as I always am by the double-standards applied to men and women – I would like to know why a man deceiving a woman about having an affair is regarded as an unforgivable crime but a woman deceiving a man about not only having an affair but the much more profound matter of the paternity of ‘their’ child is a non-issue?

Since when was that a non-issue?

About two months ago this issue received a lot of publicity connected with the legality of Child Support garnishing when several fathers found out they werent actually the father of the children they were and had been paying child support for and the airwaves were full of commentators, I saw at least 3 (who were all women) saying that men shouldnt worry about it - they are still their children...ie 'it's a non-issue'.

I know that there will always be widely varying views in individuals - I am primarily concerned with 'the general overview reflected in the media' and in this case there was an incredibly strong media push to have the above view accepted, on at least 2 of these occasions there was no-one recruited to put an opposite view.

Fair enough.

I don't think it's a particularly widespread problem though. And if it was, unfortunately there'd be no way to guage, save for DNA testing every father and child.

Personally I think any woman prepared to lie about who the father of their child is, is probably not responsible enough to have a child in the first place....

People suck.

Posted by spendocrat, Thursday, 15 February 2007 11:09:28 AM
"I don't think it's a particularly widespread problem though."

This may be an urban myth since I have never seen a decent reference for it - though I havent really looked for one - but there is a story going around that some type of DNA study in the UK had to be abandoned because they found an incidence of about 20% of non-father paternity and they could not continue with the study without making that information becoming available. It is also consistent with what is known about animal behaviour - you know all those birds we were told 'mate for life', well since DNA testing has been developed they have discovered that while the cat's away, the mice indeed do play.

"And if it was, unfortunately there'd be no way to guage, save for DNA testing every father and child."

A randomized sample would be fine.

"People suck."
Yeah, but then they blow - the room fills with smoke and I guess it doesnt matter anyway but I just wish they would treat both sexes the same.

Rob the stuff I've seen suggests that around 30%+ of those who get paternity testing done because they were suspicious about the childs paternity find that they are not the father. You would expect the rates to be high in those cases.

I've seen estimates (I don't remember where) that suggested 10% would be about the norm but I've not seen any evidence that serious work has been done on the issue.

The Australian Law Reform Commission had a proposal before the government to make paternity testing illegal without either a court order or the consent of the mother (their wording may be different). I exchanged a couple of emails with them on this topic and the issue seemed to be the mothers privacy - if she'd been having an affair a paternity test could breach her privacy. The same mob favour massive financial disclosure during divorce proceedings, I never worked that logic out.

I doubt it is as big an issue as some believe but it appears to be very big for those on the wrong end of it, the children and "fathers" deceived.

R0bert