I seem to remember some years ago that a man was ordered by a court (don’t know where) to support a child of his wife conceived outside of their marriage, the judge ruling that anything that happens while married belongs to husband regardless. Does this still happen? Nothing’s changed?
At least in one of the states in the U.S., if a woman gives birth while married, the name on the child’s birth certificate will be her husband’s. Even if it is fairly certain (different skin coloring, for example) that the husband is probably isn’t the birth father.
To get a different name put on the birth certificate as the father, there has to be a DNA test and legal papers (don’t remember exactly what papers).
My friend had to do this, after she got divorced. She didn’t want her ex-husband to have any potential custody of the child.
In that particular case, everything was planned. Except the getting divorced part. Husband was not meant to be a dad.
The case I was referring to, DNA showed husband was not father but he still had to pay child support
How old was the child when the husband decided to divorce his wife and not pay child support, because that matters?
In Maryland, you are the father if you do not contest paternity within the first two years of the child’s life, even with DNA testing. At least, that was the case in 2002.
IIRC (and it’s the same case you were thinking of) the court found that the fact the husband had raised the child as his own for so long, that made him responsible for the child even if he was not the biological father.
I wrote a big long brief about this in a case some years ago.
Short version: A child born to a married couple is presumed to be a product of the marriage. This assumption used to be absolute. Contemporary Supreme Court decisions says “not so fast.” If the biological father takes steps within two years to act as a father (why such an arbitrary number who knows) then he has rights to contest paternity.
If a man holds himself out to be a father, then the best interests of the child require that he may not withdraw that position.
It is a confusing mess.
Scalia almost lost his freaking mind over this and made a pretty convincing argument that a man who has sex with a married woman has no right to affirm his adulterous relationship by claiming the child to be his:
ISTM that the government is really averse to paying to raise children and will put anyone they can financially in charge of taking care of that child.
Different states may have different rules and, sometimes, it leads to odd outcomes.
I think it is far more benign than that. The basic rule is that if you hold yourself out to be the father of a child, you cannot subsequently withdraw that and leave the child fatherless. The court can’t force you to be a good father, but it can force you to pay.
So, if your wife cheats on you and you “pretend” that the child is yours, then you are stuck with that choice. If you move in with a woman and let her kids call you “daddy” for four years, you can’t trade them in like an old car.
What doesn’t happen, which is frequently mentioned, is that simply dating or living with a woman who has prior children puts you on the hook for child support. That only happens when a man takes a parental role and holds himself out as the father of those children.
What if you (the guy) were duped into thinking it was your kid and only found out later that was not the case?
That is something that is in flux and there is a wild inconsistency of authority on it. The majority view is that it is in the best interests of the child not to be fatherless. This is GQ, so I won’t give my opinion on that.
This is currently the rule in California. The husband is the presumed father. If he doesn’t contest it within the first two years of the child’s life, he’ll be on the hook unless his parental rights are terminated, which generally requires that someone else is stepping up to adopt.
Also read about in loco parentis regarding this question, which is in part a legal doctrine that may allow or require a non-biological parent to exercise the legal rights and responsibilities of a biological parent if they have held themselves out as the parent. As mentioned already, it varies by location and time what “holding or being held” out to be a parent means.
My divorce agreement contains a sentence stating that I am not acting in loco parentis with respect to my ex-wife’s 14 year-old son, who has a different biological father. This means no child support owed by me, but also no parental rights or visitation.
We could both make arguments against this if we wanted. I’ve been acting as this boy’s father since he was 3 years old. However, the separation happened when he was a (fairly) independent teenager, can drive, work, take care of himself, lives with mom, and we don’t talk or see each other anyways. It would be an uphill battle to force me to support him.
Fortunately mom is of the opinion that kid’s should be allowed whatever they want, the 14 year-old doesn’t want me or my rules around, so she’s giving up child support in order to keep me out of the picture.
I don’t know how things would turn out if you were rich and had a high-price team of lawyers arguing about it though… for example the Orange one discovered today that Baron was actually fathered by Rudy. Could he get out of owing his wife for support?
Well, it rather works both ways–if a guy steps out and fathers a child with an unmarried woman his wife and legitimate children are then saddled with the loss of resources incurred when he has to pay child support for that kid.
Basically, if you want the benefits of marriage (and studies show that cishet men benefit the most in every way from the arrangement) then you have to accept the responsibilities as well and it’s not a cafeteria, you don’t get to picky choosy which features you want and leave the rest.
All excellent and correct responses. I just (of course) have a few further comments:
Your post is 100% correct. I would just note that a judge reviewed your agreement and ratified it. The court probably saw that the boy was adequately provided for and that it was in his best interests not to have you as his father foisted upon him (that sounds insulting but is not mean to be 
) nor was it necessary for you to pay money. If your ex-wife applied for any public services, at least in my state, someone would be paying child support for the kid.
The modern idea is that the man’s voluntary choice to commit adultery is what deprived his existing family with those resources and that his other child, through no fault of his or her own, deserves an equal share of those resources.
The traditional idea was that the marriage was sacrosanct and that illegitimate children had no such rights, somehow punishing these children, literally, for the sins of the father. We, even cranky old guys like me have gotten away from that.
Maybe I am naive, but I like to think that for every man who would outright reject a child they had raised for years, and feel “on the hook” to pay child support for a child they no longer felt a connection to, there are 10 who appreciate that the law protects their right to stay a parent to their child, even if they turn out not to have the genetic connection they thought they did.
I mean, I understand how a 3rd party might find it unfair or scandalois to have to pay for a brat they didn’t father, as a hypothetical. But i sure hope thay an actual parent looking at the actual child they raised would be more worried about losing that child than about the horror of supporting them.
In @mmmiiikkkeee’s case it seems like the relationship had already been a strained one and both are happy to be done with each other.
I’d bet though you are right in your guess on numbers. But OTOH divorce gets ugly sometimes and sometimes kids take sides …
Yes, California had the same law - 2 years to contest paternity. (still has?) There was an article about how the Welfare Dept. (or whoever) was pretty lax about making sure a summons was delivered - wrong address, never sent, etc. (One sad case, the supposed father’s new girlfriend tossed the summons and never told him.) Once the two years were over, even DNA does not get the father off the hook - law written before DNA was a thing. Even obvious lies (father was nowhere near the mother during the alleged conception) don’t stop the process once the two years are up.
Some places still have the law that the father is automatically the father;
Canada, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling years ago - a person who has “assumed the role” of parent cannot unilaterally break that connection or emotional bond. So a man can shack up and after 6 months, may be liable for child support. Note this does not remove the obligation on previous cohabitees or bio-dad.
Basically, child support is a debt owed to the child. It’s not pay-to-play, as in you get visitation if you pay up and can escape paying up if you don’t want visitation. (Or you stop getting nookie so mama does not deserve to get the support for the child you both have been raising.)
I assume the first person they’d go after would be the biological father. Just because the kid is, say, 15 or 16 and he’s had nothing to do with him since he was born, he does not avoid his ultimate obligation.
But that’s an interesting question - do any states have an assumption like Canada, that a non-father with the implied relationship is on the hook for support? (I recall it was a thing back in the 60’s and 70’s that the social worker would look into whether a man stayed overnight with a mother on welfare, and if he appears to be as often as not “living there” then they’d cut her off welfare with the assumption he should take care of her and her kids. But in those days, deadbeat dad enforcement was severely lacking…)
And would a bilogical dad of a child with an otherwise married woman be liable for child support? Which goes to the OP’s question. Does the court care if there’s a husband in the picture? I imagine “we split years ago but never got divorced” is a not unusual marital situation for a new mother.
As I tried to explain earlier, the majority rule is that we don’t upset the status quo ante, simply because two adults can no longer get along. If you told a kid that you were his/her father, then you are stuck with it, even in the controversial case where you were affirmatively mislead (although as I said, this is in flux but still the majority rule).
This is, according to these courts, that the best interests of the child ( a topic for debate in another thread) requires that the child not be “bastardized” (yes, I have heard judges say it) and stems from ye olde common law.
No, the court cannot make you toss a baseball with your son, but it can make you pay. This seems to be getting into opinion and not GQ.