Paternity Determinations by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.
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Two hillbillies were sitting around talking one afternoon. After a while the first fellow says to the second, “If I was to sneak over to your place Saturday and make love to your wife while you was off huntin' and she got pregnant and had a baby, would that make us kin?” The second fellow crooked his head sideways for a minute, scratched his head, and squinted his eyes like he was thinking real hard about the question. Finally, he said, “Well, I don't know about kin, but it would make us even.”
How common is female infidelity?
There is little known about the historical rate of paternity fraud. Blood tests began
around 1920
suggest that at least 10-15% of the time the
“father”
wasn't, even then. But until the 1970s the power of paternal exclusion for such tests was only 30-40% so it is certain paternity fraud was more common. In the 1980's
HLA typing
raised the exclusionary power of the tests to 80% and the number of men excluded from paternity began to quickly rise.
The use of genetic testing in paternity cases in the United States began in October 1979 in a small juvenile and domestic relations court in Virginia where a young black woman challenged Virginia's Code 20-61.1 as being unconstitutional. On April 26, 1985, the Virginia Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling on the admissibility of genetic testing and its use as evidence in Virginia courts in the case of Hankerson v. Moody, 229 Va 270 (1985).
In the 1980s DNA testing using Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) became available with an exclusion power for paternity of 99.99% or better. In RFLP tests blood samples are taken from child, mother, and alleged father, which obviously required the cooperation and presence of all three parties. Even with that difficulty the number of paternity tests requested began to rapidly increase and by 1988 the AABB reports 77,000 tests were done.
In the 1990s the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) became established as the standard method for paternity testing. This technique has the distinct advantages that it is not invasive. Samples are usually obtained by rubbing cotton swabs on the inner cheek of the child and the male to be tested, although DNA samples may be obtained by other methods, for example a tissue into which the child has sneezed. No sample is required of the mother to determine paternity although paternity fraud has become so common, and women so accustomed to faking results that proof of maternity, and that the “child” is corporeal and in the custody and care of the mother should now be required. And with the ease and popularity of these tests the costs have greatly decreased and are now (2006) in the range of a few hundred dollars.
Around 400,000 DNA paternity tests are now done yearly and consistently ~30% of such tests show the man is not the father of the child in question. That exclusion rate has dropped a few percent from the 29.06% reported by the American Association of Blood Banks in 2001 based on 310,490 determinations. With such large sample sizes there is little question that female infidelity is common and paternity fraud a major issue.
A man typically marries to have children of his own and that is an underlying reason patriarchal marriage was invented. Therefore, paternity fraud should be roundly condemned and thoroughly punished by any society built on a foundation of stable families, as was ours. Certainly Judeo-Christian society has the Commandments:
• Thou shalt not commit adultery.
• Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife...nor his maidservant...
Incredibly, despite the well known fact that paternity fraud is widespread, in Colorado and many other states the legislatures and courts have condoned this practice and consistently rewarded women for their adultery or for simply whoring around and then asking the man with the deepest pockets to support the child when she gets pregnant.
It is not at all unusual to find a woman has brazenly asked for increased child support after it is found her children were not fathered by the man paying the support. For example, see the case of Magill v Magill. In some cases we've heard of women are collecting child support from multiple men for the same child, or collecting support for child(ren) that do not exist, have died, are not living with them, or long ago reached the age of majority, and sometimes to places that don't exist (Maricopa, Tennessee, gotta love Maximus, Inc. ).
It seems painfully obvious that women will do all in their power to keep their husbands, ex-husbands, and sex partners from discovering their infidelity to keep the child support money coming. Thus, it isn't at all unusual for a putative “father” not to discover he isn't for many years. In a recent New Jersey case the cuckolded husband did not find out about the paternity fraud until the child was 30-years old, 20 years after he divorced his adulterous wife. The question is why our courts and legislatures condone, and even encourage such fraudulent practices?
From a broader perspective it is clear that if upwards of 30% of women are dishonest about, or do not know who the father of their child(ren) is then female infidelity must be much more common than that. Modern methods of birth control make it improbable that pregnancy is a common result of sexual intercourse in America. It is reasonable to presume that women in a committed relationship would ordinarily use precautions to avoid becoming pregnant. Thus, pregnancies where the father is indeterminate should be relatively rare (<5%) but that assumption isn't supported by available data.
A May 2, 2008, article in the New York Post reported that 34% of the mothers polled had an extramarital affair after the birth of their children. There is no reason to believe that fewer than one-third of married women have an affair before their first child is born.
Census figures show that as of 2008, 38% of children are born out of wedlock and in California it is reported that two-thirds of children are born to unmarried mothers. There is no evidence to suggest that the great majority of these single mothers had intercourse with just one man during the period in which they became pregnant.
Thus, while an exact value for infidelity is unavailable we can safely assume it is well above 30% of all females in and out of a relationship. Thus the potential for paternity fraud is huge.
It has yet to be determined if our patriarchal society can survive the serial polygamy practiced by the majority today as a result of no-fault divorce. However, it is certain that if paternity of a man's child cannot be ensured then our present society will not endure. And the disastrous effects of matriarchal polyandry are all too evident in our inner-city ghettos today.
Many times paternity fraud arises because women are required to name the father of their child(ren) in order to claim public assistance. The WIC program is one such example.
The following are all replies that Dallas women have written on Child Support Agency forms in the section for listing father's name and details. These are genuine excerpts from the forms.
In many cases default child support orders are issued on little better evidence than this. Jim Munson and Peter Smith beware, you could end up paying support for all these kids...and you needn't live in Dallas or know these women. And if you live in Colorado, as of 2006 once a child support order is entered you cannot use paternity testing to challenge the order.
1. Regarding the identity of the father of my twins, child A was fathered by Jim Munson. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of child B, but I believe that he was conceived on the same night.
2. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my child as I was being sick out of a window when taken unexpectedly from behind. I can provide you with a list of names of men that I think were at the party if this helps.
3. I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party at 3600 Grand Avenue where I had unprotected sex with a man I met that night. I do remember that the sex was so good that I fainted. If you do manage to track down the father, can you send me his phone number? Thanks.
4. I don't know the identity of the father of my daughter. He drives a BMW that now has a hole made by my stiletto in one of the door panels. Perhaps you can contact BMW service stations in this area and see if he's had it replaced.
5. I have never had sex with a man. I am awaiting a letter from the Pope confirming that my son's conception was immaculate and that he is Christ risen again.
6. I cannot tell you the name of child A's dad as he informs me that to do so would blow his cover and that would have cataclysmic implications for the economy. I am torn between doing right by you and right by the country. Please advise.
7. I do not know who the father of my child was as all blacks look the same to me.
8. Peter Smith is the father of child A. If you do catch up with him, can you ask him what he did with my AC/DC kc/s?
9. From the dates it seems that my daughter was conceived at Disney World; maybe it really is the Magic Kingdom.
10. So much about that night is a blur. The only thing that I remember for sure is Delia Smith did a program about eggs earlier in the evening. If I'd have stayed in and watched more TV rather than going to the party at 146 Miller Drive, mine might have remained unfertilized.
11. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my baby, after all when you eat a can of beans you can't be sure which one made you fart.
So it isn't too surprising to find that men are fingered as fathers when they aren't. What is astounding is that such false claims are supported by courts and child support agencies. In effect men are enslaved to support children they probably have never known and almost certainly are not allowed to visit even if they once regarded the child as theirs.
In many cases men have default paternity judgements entered against them, without ever receiving notice, to support mothers they have never known. In one case reported to the Equal Justice Foundation, Riverside County in California began garnishing the wages of a man in South Carolina for child support because he had a similar name even though he had never lived in California and had no idea who the woman is. Also, the child in question was 16-years old before the default support action was begun.
Almost never is the adulteress or slattern whose behavior produced these children held to account. In fact, they are usually generously rewarded. Nor are the cads who impregnate these floozies likely to ever be faced with penalties for their fornication. In fact, he may be financially rewarded by the courts as well. While it is unusual for the court to order the cuckolded husband to pay child support directly to the biological father, as in the Richardson case, it is quite common for the wife's boyfriend to move into the family home with her after she gets a restraining order against her husband. The two vultures then live largely off the child support the court orders the former husband to pay his ex-wife. In today's redfem world the cuckold may also be required to pay the mortgage on his former home as well. All in “the best interests of the child” of course.
Under current laws and practices the only safe approach a man has is to get a paternity test by the most reliable means available of any child claimed to be his as soon after the birth of the child as possible.
The statistics cited above make it abundantly clear that no woman is above suspicion in these parlous times. Unfortunately the laws and courts so strongly favor infidelity and adultery that, despite the love a man may feel for mother and child, he must take such defensive measures for his own long-term survival. It is much better to be sure than unjustly enslaved.
A more rational approach would be to require that a paternity test be required before any court could order a man to support a child in the event of a divorce, separation, or paternity claim. Thus, a man could only be compelled to support children whose paternity had been unequivocally established. That measure would also likely cut down on the divorce rate and increase the likelihood that the biological father would comply with the court order.
| EJF Home | Find Help | Join the EJF | Comments? | Get EJF newsletter |
| Families And Marriage Book | Abstract | Family site map | Family index |
| Chapter 7 — Paternity Fraud Epidemic |
| Next — Abuses In Establishing Paternity |