Paternity

“ Not even if the paternity is a matter of doubt among three men or six men or any several men, can any of them, or all of them, escape behind “exceptio plurium,” which in other lands affords them protection. ”

“ Paternity may be a legal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or he any son? ”

“ The paternity is the essential clue to learn the kindred, whether it be of the whole or half blood; and the primary element in this ascertainment is wanting where no father to either party is to be found, and when the law itself declares that there is none. ”

“ In cases where the marriage rites have not been duly completed before a child is born, provided the couple might otherwise marry, the father is often required to acknowledge formally the paternity of the child, which is then allowed to live. ”

“ Paternity has its responsibilities, so I am told by all who have the good fortune to be fathers—and from those who have not, I hear no less of it—more, perhaps. But, though I squared my shoulders, the load is light as yet, so that they bear it passing well. ”

“ We have not before faced the question of a biological father's relationship with his child when the child was born while the mother was married to another man. On several occasions however, we have considered whether a biological father has a constitutionally cognizable interest in an opportunity to establish paternity. ”

“ The sacred rights of paternity are never violated in the East: there a son, whatever may be his age or condition, never sits in the presence of his father; but his movements and whole demeanour are marked with filial submission. ”

“ The basic principle enunciated in the Court's unwed father cases is that an unwed father who has demonstrated a sufficient commitment to his paternity by way of personal, financial, or custodial responsibilities has a protected liberty interest in a relationship with his child. ”

“ Thus the legends which tell how Latin kings were born of virgin mothers and divine fathers become at least more intelligible. For, stripped of their fabulous element, tales of this sort mean no more than that a woman has been gotten with child by a man unknown; and this uncertainty as to fatherhood is more easily compatible with a system of kinship which ignores paternity than with one which makes it all-important. ”

“ PARENT'S PARTICIPATION.—Each parent furnishing at indispensable portion of the materials of life, and somehow or other, contributes parentally to the formation of the constitutional character of their joint product, appears far more reasonable, than to ascribe, as many do, the whole to either some to paternity, others to maternity. Still this decision go which way it may, does not affect the great fact that children inherit both the physiology and the mentality existing in parents at the time they received being and constitution. ”

“ A father would be differently defined by a lawyer and a physiologist: but the points which in the thoughts of these make up the essence of paternity are absolutely wanting to the consciousness of the infant who uses the name of ‘father.’ The differences in the judgments applied to feelings and ethics are very great, and for obvious reasons. ”

“ In the absence of an entry of the parents of a child or in case of an entry which is incorrect or incomplete, the interested parties have the right to establish their paternity and maternity respectively by court procedure. ”

“ In the primitive period this is especially between the children of the same mother, not so much because of the doubt of paternity as because physiologically and obviously it is the mother in whom is formed and from whom alone proceeds the living being. ”

“ France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Russia, Servia and the canton of Geneva provide no means of inquiry into the paternity of an illegitimate child, and consequently all support of the child falls upon the mother ”

“ As another illustration, we will select a not exceptional instance of a low type of parents, whose ancestors may or may not have been below their own level, but certainly not above it. To these parents are born a number of children who may more or less closely resemble them, but among the brood is one so entirely unlike any of the others as to perhaps arouse suspicion as to his or her paternity. ”

“ I have explained, in my Journey to the Hebrides, how gold and silver destroy feudal subordination [757] . But, besides, there is a general relaxation of reverence. No son now depends upon his father as in former times. Paternity used to be considered as of itself a great thing, which had a right to many claims. ”

“ Evidence of paternity, in case of the father disowning the child, is to be established according to the form prescribed in Sections 140–144.
140. An unmarried woman who becomes pregnant shall give notice not later than three months before the birth of the child to the local Bureau of Vital Statistics of her place of residence, stating the time of conception, the name and residence of the father. ”

“ It may also be pointed out for the sake of completeness that in the great majority of human societies parental kinship assumes the form of consanguinity; the ideas that underlie kinship are generally gathered round the facts of procreation. These facts are connected with such deep and powerful instincts and feelings that in the majority of cases they naturally shape and influence the ideas of maternity and paternity. ”

“ 'Maternity,' it has been said, 'is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion;' and this not very refined expression exactly conveys the connection of the lower human societies. ”

“ Among many animal species the maternal family exists without there ever having been either clan or gens. As a matter of fact, in humanity as well as in animality, the uterine family establishes itself spontaneously, whenever the male abandons the female and her progeny. This familial type will therefore necessarily appear in every horde where there is no durable pairing of males and females, of men and women. In every ethnic group living in promiscuity, for example, uterine filiation shows itself, and it will be the same under a polyandric régime, unless fictitious paternity is established. ”

“ Many of the historical proverbs have a doubtful paternity. ”

“ When the wife becomes pregnant, the eldest brother performs the ceremony of giving the bow and arrow, but the brothers are all equally regarded as the fathers of the child. If one of the brothers leaves the rest and sets up an establishment of his own, it appeared, however, that he might lose his right to be regarded as the father of the children.
If a man is asked the name of his father, he usually gives the name of one man only, even when he is the offspring of a polyandrous marriage. ”

“ Thus, a man will not only apply the term "father" to all the brothers of his father, to all the sons' sons of his father's father, and to all the sons' sons' sons of his father's father's father, to all the husbands of his mother's sisters and of his mother's mother's granddaughters, etc., but he will also apply the term to all the members of his father's clan of the same generation as his father and to all the husbands of the women of the mother's clan of the same generation as the mother, even when it is quite impossible to show any genealogical relationship with them. ”

“ Younger sons, at the time of their marriage, or at other important periods of life, receive paternal gifts, now more, now less, according to usage, rank, the family fortune, etc., but the bulk of the property belongs to the oldest son, on whom the younger sons look as their father. ”

“ His rights are measured to him by the theory of liberty—that is, he has only such as he can conquer; his duties are measured to him on the paternal theory—that is, he must discharge all which are laid upon him, as is the fortune of parents. In a paternal relation there are always two parties, a father and a child; and when we use the paternal relation metaphorically, it is of the first importance to know who is to be father and who is to be child. The rôle of parent falls always to the Forgotten Man. ”

“ The patria potestas, unless the paterfamilias voluntarily put an end to it, lasted as long as he lived and retained his status. The marriage of a son, unlike that of a daughter passing into the hand of a husband, did not release him from it, nor did his children become subject to him so long as he himself was in potestate. On the contrary, his wife passed on marriage into the power of her father-in-law, and their children as they were born fell under that of their paternal grandfather ”

“ It is a fact that in some countries the father has to purchase the child from its mother; and in the Roman ceremony of the husband raising the baby from the floor we may trace the savage idea that the male parent must formally proclaim his adoption of and responsibility for the offspring. ”

“ What cannot be disputed is, that always and everywhere peoples who are in process of civilisation have adopted the paternal family, according even excessive powers to the father of the family. What is probable is, that in the majority of cases paternal filiation has succeeded to maternal filiation and to more or less confused familial forms. Is this paternal or even patriarchal family the final term of familial evolution? Has evolution, never as yet arrested in its course, said its last word in regard to marriage and the family? ”

“ Why should a conception of Kinship, so elastic as to include strangers brought into the family by adoption, be nevertheless so narrow as to shut out the descendants088 of a female member? To solve these questions, we must recur to the Patria Potestas. The foundation of Agnation is not the marriage of Father and Mother, but the authority of the Father. All persons are Agnatically connected together who are under the same Paternal Power, or who have been under it, or who might have been under it if their lineal ancestor had lived long enough to exercise his empire. ”

“ But a paternalism must have a parent, a royal sire, or a priestly grandmother. In the antique paternalisms there is invariably this parental personality at the top; down beneath it are the puppet children. ”

“ If a man have fifty wives the knowledge of the father is as distinct as the knowledge of the mother. It is not destroyed, therefore. The great principle of parentage on the part of the husband, on the part of the father, is preserved. Therefore it is more consistent, more reasonable, first for procreation, and secondly for obtaining a knowledge of parentage, that a man should have a plurality of wives than that a woman should have a plurality of husbands. ”

“ If a man to his daughter, a concubine, p. 41has not granted a marriage portion, has not given her to a husband, after the father has gone to his fate, her brothers according to the capacity of the father’s house, shall grant her a marriage portion and shall give her to a husband.
§ 185. If a man has taken a young child ‘from his waters’ to sonship, and has reared him up, no one has any claim against that nursling.
§ 186. If a man has taken a young child to sonship, and when he took him his father and mother rebelled, that nursling shall return to his father’s house. ”

“ Impediments.—No man shall marry his mother, grandmother, daughter, granddaughter, stepmother, sister, grandfather’s wife, son’s wife, grandson’s wife, wife’s mother, wife’s grandmother, wife’s daughter, wife’s granddaughter, brother’s daughter, sister’s daughter, father’s sister or mother’s sister.
No woman shall marry her father, grandfather, son, grandson, stepfather, brother, grandmother’s husband, daughter’s husband, granddaughter’s husband, husband’s father, husband’s grandfather, husband’s son, husband’s grandson, brother’s son, sister’s son, father’s brother or mother’s brother. ”

“ There being no male heir, it might be that a son would be adopted in early life to grow up as the heir, or he might be adopted with the idea of his marrying one of the daughters later, or there might be no formal adoption but a young man would marry a daughter and give up his own name and take that of the family and thus become the [Pg 146] heir. The childless wife, if not divorced, would often care for the adopted child as if her own, which care would be reciprocated by the adopted son in her old age. ”

“ The habits of the “much-married” primitive men made mistake about any one’s mother less likely than mistake about his father; and, if in civilised times it is, as the saying goes, a wise child that knows its own father, he was, in barbarous times, a wise father who knew his own child. Examples tracing the kinship through females, father and offspring being never of the same clan, abound in both ancient and modern authorities, and perhaps the most amusing one that can be given is found in Dr. ”

“ Form of adoption The word aplûtu, abstract of aplu, “son,” and therefore literally “sonship,” being also used to denote the relation of a daughter to a parent, came to denote the “share” which a son or daughter received. If a man adopted a son, he granted him an aplûtu, or “sonship,” and this carried with it a material property. But the father, while still living, [pg 158] might grant the son his aplûtu and stipulate for maintenance during the rest of his life. ”

“ How could the Revisers choose this last reading, 'an heir through God,' and keep the word adoption? From the passage it is as plain as St. Paul could make it, that, by the word translated adoption, he means the raising of a father's own child from the condition of tutelage and subjection to others, a state which, he says, is no better than that of a slave, to the position and rights of a son. None but a child could become a son; the idea is—a spiritual coming of age; only when the child is a man is he really and fully a son. ”