I don't understand how asking for a paternity test is any more offensive than asking a person to be tested for stds or asking for a prenup.

Protecting me doesn't mean disrespecting you unless you choose to take offense.

[shrugs]

However I completely agree with myschae re gov't mandate tests and for the same reasons.

This is what I mean about it being a societal attitude problem rather than a legal problem. I happen to think a better solution for this would be for 1.) men to stop being so "weak" and 2.) women to "get used to it."
I don't think laws should be enacted to protect conflict avoiders from themselves. Over all, I'm in favor of personal responsibility over government regulation. Men who have the ability to do this legally need to grow a pair and do it if it's important to them - and if it's NOT important to them then why should we care? Men who don't have the ability to do this..... like perhaps ones who weren't notified of a hearing might need legal remedies that probably all ready exist. And, if they don't, I'll put my name on the petition or whatever to get them put in place.

Once again, I do think men get the short end on this issue -- but part of ending that is for them to stand up for themselves and take the actions all ready allowed to them by law.

They might be able to avoid the post partum hysteria if they let their wives-to-be know that they intend to do this before they walk down the aisle. Just like many of the other things you should discuss before getting married (ie. if you want children, how many, financial management, etc).

I think even women who know "for sure" who the father of their children are (because they've only had sex with one man during the relevant time period) might "freak out" a little if it was sprung on them as they're lying there, recovering. However, if it was known before the marriage, before the conception, before the birth -- before SEX, then I think a lot of men might find a lot less conflict.


Mys

There are variations on that same situation posted around the web. I assume that most of them are true. Once again, laws and the courts are concerned about the financial implications of a mother/child on welfare, so if they can stick some hapless soul, why not. Bureaucracys have no heart, by definition.

Even though the WW married the OM, the setup is still tilted against the BH. So sad, too bad, say those who have no personal stake in the sordid mess.

In Japan, there is a rebellion going on. Young women are refusing to get married! It seems that their traditional roles look very bleak to the new crop of women there. Ok, so what is going on with men here? Well, certain sub-cultures have seen men NOT get married for a while as a result of LBJ's Great Society. Now that same happenstance is beginning to see daylight in more mainstream sub-cultures for different reasons. The incidence of teen pregnancy is declining because Clinton got with a Repub Congress and revised welfare.

But that same dynamic hasn't made a dent in the declining willingness of the typical American Male to get married, especially with draconian divorce laws that totally favor women. The pendullum is starting to swing and while people can predict, nobody knows for sure where it is headed. I have seen pundits attempt to predict that parenting will evolve into something that I believe will hit a large bump because it requires separate households with 50/50 parenting responsibilities. The economics of that one for the average person boggle the mind.

Given that male infidelity is showing somewhat of a down tick, and women a very large uptick, I think we are going to see a change in male entitlement and that will be a good thing. How women are going to handle their end is beyond my understanding. I know that men most often marry whoever they happen to be going with at the time the family nesting thing hits them between the eyes. That one is likely to change a bit too as males resist the nesting instinct.

A crystal ball would be nice.

Larry

Men being more choosy about who they marry and who they impregnate (have unprotected sex with) is a GOOD thing. Children aren't a 'woman' issue or a 'man' issue -- they're a people issue. It takes two people to make one and if people become all the choosier about finding someone who has the "right" set of values and compatibility (whatever "right" means to them) so they can stick around and raise the child then that's progress in my book.

I'm not too worried about the human race if people become "too choosy" and a few don't procreate -- we're no where even close to being 'endangered' yet. I think people over all should learn to be more choosy and probably less trusting about their sexual/marital partners -- choose wisely because the consequences are horrible otheriwse -- and not just for the married couple.



Mys

yep...stop having sex with your wife so that you know if she is pregnant it is by someone else! Yeah, that will work!

TA.. men are abused in the reproductive process as they have no say as to whether their child lives or dies... it is at a womans discretion....in the US. Also, men are abused in the courts as a rule... women are given much more in terms of rights in court.... fact.

Stop with the can men understand it [email]cr@p...[/email] just because you have boobs does not mean you need to be one.... every woman I have spoken to about this also feels the man gets jobbed in these cases.

Hi, myschae.

I don't like government intrusion into our lives any more than you do, possibly even less.

My wife and I taught our daughter at home in a state that arrested people for doing just that at the time. She is now 27 and finishing up her doctorate in chemistry. We don't like big government, and we are willing to take risks where we see it as overly intrusive.

We will have to agree to disagree on the paternity issue. I see no way to set straight the inequities involved in our current system without government intervention. The same was true for the female right to vote. There are just some things that good intent won't fix. At least law can give men back some semblance of equity.

Having said that, there are other fixes - women can let go of some of the existing inequities in the existing justice system, but we all know how well that would work.

In my opinion, as men, using our very best common sense and intrepidity against the current system, will gain the male gender about zip with the existing bucket of bad laws currently in use. The only fix I see is a correction. Whether that correction comes in the guise of new legal requirements, or modifications to the old ones, is of little importance to me. That the change occurs is of paramount importance.

All the best,
Gimble

I don't know if it's on the internet. I read it in an LA newspaper while on a business trip. I then saw a short article on it in US News and World Report a couple of weeks later. Which is why I still remember it.

Gimble:


Where can I go read? Is there anything on the web?

Michelle Langley has written a decent book dealing with female infatuation cycles as it relates to affairs and has done a great job of detailing same. She also has a mind set where she believes that men shame women about women's sexuality. She has a point. I am uncertain if she relates the shame factor to affairs as well.

The former would be legitimate, the latter of less certain parentage. One of her blind spots is a lack of understanding of cognitive fog thinking, or so it would seem. Shaming women for their sexuality is stupid. Shaming women (and men) for risking the consequences of an affair by detailing obvious consequences is fair game. But she doesn't seem to think so.

Langley also states that men are getting hosed in the courts and by law over a host of issues up to and including parentage fraud, child support (to a degree), visitation, and divorce. She is clear that women have all the cards, but is less clear if she celebrates this or not. On her forum and as she goes about promoting her book(s), she promotes the idea that marriage as we know it is going to undergo fundamental changes.

What is clear from her writing and statements is that she blames social conditioning against nature as the root cause for a lot of the grief that is going on. She promotes the idea that parentage will be 50/50 from separate households. How this would work economically, she doesn't address and is less than revealing when asked.

My point is that here is an author of a somewhat popular book on female infatuation cycles, who also understands female sexuality and she is promoting the idea that marriage as we know it is due for a sea change. You have made this statement as well. The underlying premise for her position seems to be, and I never could get specific confirmation from her on this, is that female promiscuity is both natural and inevitable so we have to learn to deal with it by law and by custom.

Western value based "romantic" marriages might be an anomoly. I have ordered a couple of Stephanie [censored]' books to see if I can find some insight there. Have you ever read her stuff?

Any comments? Oh, and again please give me an references you think would help me understand where you think we are going with all this. I do wonder which academics have the courage to delve into these matters given the mind sets of much of academia.

Finally, isn't it all about the money, the economics? It is cheaper to raise children in a two person household unless the government structures it otherwise? Did I get that right irrespective of all other considerations?

Larry

We can agree to disagree if you really want to but I am interested in understanding your point of view. I don't see the parallel between women's right to vote and men's right to genetically test for paternity. Women were barred legally from voting, not socially. Married men don't seem to be barred legally from requesting testing -- they seem to be barred in a "social" (she'll get mad at me) way.

We didn't fix women's sufferage by mandating that ALL women vote. We just extended the vote to women who wanted to vote. Heck, have you looked at the percentage of the population that is eligible to vote that actually does vote, lately? It's dismal.

I would really like to know why you feel the government needs to mandate testing rather than simply educating men (and women, too) that asking for a test is a normal, healthy, reasonable thing to do.


I see this as somewhat related but different issues. Men being unsure of their paternity to a child is a bit different from custody between two parents who are related to the child. I don't think a man who would be "a good father" to a child should be compelled to father a child who is not his own just because he's convienent. So, I don't think the child's best interest supercedes his right to not invest his time, energy, resources in random children that need caring for. By that token (if we just looked at financial resources as the main criteria) we should sweep up all the orphans and drop them on Bill Gate's doorstep. He's rich - let him take care of them.

Once you have two parents of a child -- whether by legal, formal adoption or genetics, then I think you have to work custody out in the best interest of the child. I agree our system seems to suck at that. And, I'll admit I have no idea how to even begin to fix it. It seems the most popular suggestion is to try to avoid it/minimize it as much as possible by trying to get parents to quit splitting up so much. I have to admit that argument makes a lot of good sense and I can't find a good argument against it. The only problem with it that I can see is that it doesn't seem to be very effective.


What would equity look like to you?

Mys

All the argument here is for the rights of men to be sure of the paternity of their children.

I can certainly understand that.

However, I would argue that there is an analogous need for a law which would protect wives and families by deterring their husbands from impregnating other women.

That is, if a DNA analysis reveals that the baby is not the husband's, then investigation into the actual father is carried out, and that the biological father's wife (if there is one) is notified. Whether there is a wife or not, the biological father should be called upon to provide financially for the child.

Of course, this would call for the national DNA database - where I fully share Myschae's unease. But as a way of making sure that a man wore a condom or kept his zipper zipped, it might be more effective than the current situation.

Seems fair?

TA

agreed

Another question for the men....

Many men who have been utterly faithful to their wives during marriage, are likely to have had sexual relations with other women before marriage.

The possibility exists that a tiny proportion of those encounters resulted in pregnancies that went unknown to the men involved. (Perhaps where the woman was not entirely sure of paternity, and plumped for the potential father most able to provide for her and the baby.)

If a paternity law was able to establish the true paternity of these children, would the men here want to know about children they'd unknowingly fathered? Would you be willing to shoulder a retrospective financial burden?

TA

yes
yes

I think it's more than just economics. I think it's also a time/resource issue. It just seems to make sense to me that having two adults available to care for children would make things a lot easier: making meals, driving to activities, helping with homework, shopping, etc. In fact, I think that one of the problems with the evolution of the family is that they have become more spread out. If you go back probably 120 years or so most families probably lived close by their extended families - so you had grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. to help out. The more caring people involved in raising children -- it seems to me, the easier/more successful it would be regardless of financial resources.

I'm not sure if this is off topic or not, and if it is I apologize. But, I do think that the general societal trend towards smaller centers of responsibility (two one parent "families" or just one parent families) is a huge disservice towards future children. (Which, I realize, has nothing to do with not knowing who the father is...) Splintering up is a big problem -- whether it's women going off and having/raising children without daddies present or whether it's men going off and having/raising children without mommies present. Sometimes, it can't be helped -- but as a general trend, I would hope we want much, much less of that rather than more.

I just don't know how to fix the trend but I do think more factors than economic are involved and need to be considered.

Mys

As a BW with an FWH who has an OC, I can tell you that many of these men "ask" to be hosed by their refusal to insist on DNA testing by their AP. They are so blinded by their insistance that OW would not cheat on "them" they put their entire family's finances at risk. Don't put all of this on the women, the men could do more to help themselves.

BTW my H is ONE of the men who blindly signed the BC and DOP at the birth of OC. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

I also wanted to add that my oldest child was an out of wedlock birth. No DNA back then but my son's father asked for a blood test and I had no problem with this. Smart man he was. We never had a formal CS order and I pretty much took care of my son myself.

MYS


Too right you are!

Larry

TA:

Your focus on this discussion seems to be all about males and male responsibilities and attitudes:


How about a law that would deter women from getting pregnant by someone who is not their husband? And no, I don't advocate such a law - be a waste of time.

Any kid deserves the knowledge of who made him/her. This relates to grenetic issues with disease, etc.

Larry

faithful:


I agree. Both genders share full responsibility 100%, not 50/50.

Larry

Hi, myschae.

I am limited on time today, but I will get back to you in detail if needed.

The inequities are simple.

There are many men (estimated in the millions), right now, paying for children that are not theirs, both inside and outside of the child support system.

Most of these men can ask for get DNA tests until their collective faces turn blue. The problem is, that in most states, there is no recourse for a man paying child support, even for a child that is not his own, even with a DNA test proving he is not the father.

That is a travesty of justice. Since the laws that are causing the problem exist, then they either need to be modified or removed.

If you touch those laws, then women's legal advocacy groups nation wide are going to jump to action, and at best, years of battles and many millions of dollars spent will turn into a draw.

If you mandate the test, you preempt the law at the only strategic weakness.

Unless a miracle occurs, a generation of men are still going to get financially raped before the landscape changes, even with mandated testing.

If you can tell me that women's lobbies are ready and willing to support changes in law to correct the current inequities, then I will concede my point. The fact is, of all the mens rights groups I monitor, every approach so far has been summarily rejected. Sadly, mens rights groups currently have little political clout in Washington. That state of affairs is expected to remain unchanged for some time to come.

Lobbying for mandated testing has a far greater chance of success, than does lobbying for changes to existing law.

All the best,
Gimble