The reference Sam made to California was sort of off the topic; yes, California does have a law stating that children born to a marriage are the legal children of the husband of said marriage. Since Errol Flynn wasn't married to the woman in question, the anecdote is immaterial.
Now, let's address the "unfairness" of the law. In Judaic Law, only children born of Jewish mothers are Jewish; the joke that goes with that law is "only the mother knows for sure." But at the time that law began, it was far from a joke. Wars were still fought hand-to-hand then, and raping & pillaging were an accepted part of warfare -- "to the victor go the spoils" did NOT mean just property. Was every child generated by the rape of an enemy woman by a Jewish soldier to result in a Jewish child? No Way!! The Jews didn't need any more mouths to feed, and they couldn't raise the child without the mother and the mother wouldn't be likely to raise the child with Jewish traditions! So that's the first reason that to be Jewish your mother had to be Jewish. The second reason was that sometimes the Jews lost battle and there towns were overrun; the women were "spoils" and they were as likely to conceive from rape as from marital sex. So how to prove the child was or was not Jewish?? Easy: The father didn't matter, because any child born to a Jewish woman was, by definition, Jewish. How about modern, or earlier, law? Well there are two main ways to look at it. In most states east of the Mississippi River, and many in the mid-West, a woman and her children are legal chattels of the husband; she couldn't own property, there was no guarantee that she would inherit anything upon the husband's death because the firstborn son was the normal -- often under law in the case where there was no will -- one to inherit. Under conditions like that, the husband would WANT all children born to his wife to be legally his children. If they were not legally his children, he no long had the power of life & death over them; if they were not *his* children, his wife might stand to inherit in the absense of any other legitimate heirs! So one reason for making certain that all children born in a marriage belonged to the husband was a matter of control remaining in the hands of the man/husband/"father." Later, after women had kicked enough ascii during the westward expansion to have a small amount of power, it became very important for the children of a marriage to be legally the husband's. There was the matter of inheritance still, but it was also as much a matter of who was responsible for those children should a divorce result. Even without divorce, many "permission slips" for all sorts of things from school to medical treatment required the signature of the FATHER. If the children of a marriage were not, by law, the children of the husband he could not give permission of any sort... not a "Good Thing"(tm) There's another VERY GOOD reason for making the husband the legal father of all children born to his wife (and often within X number of months after a divorce) was that technology didn't give us any way of really truly for certain sure to within 99% of certainty knowing who the father was, or at least wasn't. Even ten years ago DNA wasn't far enough along to say with certainty who the father of a child was; even excluding someone from parenthood wasn't that easy. Children HAVE to have a legal father whenever it is possible. The way our systems are set up, fathers are responsible for caring for their children. If a husband could simply say "Hey, they're not MY kids" then who would support the children? You & Me -- the taxpayers!! Here in Ohio I believe the law is still in effect -- one effort to protect children which I agree with. What would be the consequences of conception through rape where the pregnancy is not terminated, if there were no legal responsibility for the husband to children born to his wife? Hell, it used to be in some states that a man could divorce his wife based upon the fact that she "allowed" herself to become pregnant as the consequence of rape; those were, of course, very often the same states that required a woman to obtain a huband's permission to terminate any pregnancy. Do you men see any level of "unfairness" in that scenario? I do know that here in Ohio a man can be named as father to a child born outside of marriage, by the mother putting the man's name on the birth certificate. However, the man then has the choice of accepting legal fatherhood (and its responsibilities) or challenging parentage and having the DNA work done by the court to prove/disprove his parentage. That would seem to protect most of those in need of protection. Even if the law were changed, to allow a husband to disown children born of his wife, then who is gonna take care of the kids? Welfare won't do it anymore, dear people! The taxpayers don't get hooked with the tab for childcare, but we do end up getting hooked with the tabs as a consequence of children being raised in horrid conditions of poverty and/or crime, the tabs as a consequence of criminal acts by the children as children and adults, the tabs for the loss of property values when slums grow and taxbase and income to the city/county/state where those children reside, and with the tabs for whatever Federal intervention program is "hot" at the moment. The possibility that he may be declared the legal father of children born to his wife just might make a man think a little harder about why he wants to get married and who he wants to be married to. But it's not likely ... ==== On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 22:28:06 -0500, Samuel W. Heywood wrote: in reference to: >>> In the state of Michigan, USA, all children born during a legal >>> marriage are the legal children of the husband even if it can be >>> proved that he is not the father. If your wife gives birth, you >>> are the legal father. <snip> > Many other states have the same kind of unfair law as Michigan. > I believe that my state, Virginia is one of them. In the state of > California, the screen actor Errol Flynn lost a paternity suit brought > against him by a woman who claimed that the actor was the father of her > child. The actor and his legal counsel were able to prove most > conclusively that he could not have been the father. -- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
