Recently I encountered a book which dealt with paternity fraud. Some 10 years ago the only people interested in this stuff were obscure male rights groups, and now they are writing bestsellers about it. Amazing, isn't it?
Of course, it was a thoroughly modern book, full of "strong career women" and the men who cook them dinner, but it still had some sort of a moral in it. And having thought it over, I came to the conclusion that what the author tried to say was: "Don't do paternity fraud. Don't even try it, because it can lead to all sorts of trouble, and even crime." As it basically happened with the book characters.
And yet, it has one of "good" female characters uttering this phrase: "fatherhood is not biological anyway."
Except, of course, it is, just like motherhood. Now before I proceed any further, I'd like to add a disclaimer that I'm not speaking about adoption. In fact, adoption is a different topic altogether. There is no deception involved, as both husband and wife agree to adopt. We still talk about "adoption parents" as opposed to just "parents" though and it's often the wife who is more keen on adopting than her husband.
The reason for this is very simple. Many men aren't so eager to invest into children who aren't theirs. In most cultures a man will want to sire sons who will then carry on his bloodline. Male heirs have always been important, and still are, except in the USA, where I read, statistics say that more people prefer daughters (not that I'm surprised really).
Saying that fatherhood isn't biological is directly attacking fatherhood. It's also very convenient for single moms and women who divorce on a whim and exchange their children's biological fathers for a string of boyfriends (who are statistically more likely to abuse them, but who cares?)
The male equivalent would be something like the husband getting rid of his wife's baby and substituting it with the one he had with his mistresses, then telling his wife a baby is a baby and motherhood isn't biological anyway. I guess we all realise how ridiculous it sounds.
Luckily these times of Mother's Right are drawing to an end and we as a society have understood that fathers have rights, too. The book ends quite progressively with main character getting an equal custody with his ex-wife, something many fathers can still only dream of.
I think fathering another man's children makes sense, if you marry a widowed woman. Any other way, it means man is practically cuckold, even if there was no cheating and she had kids before meeting him.
ReplyDeleteAnother topic is artificial insemination with other man's sperm. I had a friend, who married a man who was sterile, but HE wanted a child nevertheless. So they had one engineered with her eggs and some random donators sperm. (they got to choose eye and hair colour). This guy had similar procedure with his ex-wife, too, so he fathered TWO kids who's real father nobody knows.
I would never, ever, ever settle for arrangement like that. I most definitely want to know the father of my children very well. Because EVERYTHING is inheritary (to an extent): your wits, your character, temperament, impulse control, autism, even virtues.
I also believe that God's is present in the conception, if it happens in marital bed. It is kind of sacrament itself. But will he be in laboratory, where you get inserted with stranger sperm? Hardly. Well, of course He is there, because He is always everywhere, but you know what I mean.
So yes, fatherhood is MOST biological.
Statements like "fatherhood is not biological anyway" speak to how dysfunctional and broken families are with many women marrying one man with kids from another in tow.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of stupidity is necessary to imbibe so that reality can be safely hidden away as a way of absolving guilt. Whether guilt from divorcing their kids' father or guilt from producing a child with a man they knew wasn't suitable husband/father material
Yeah, exactly
DeleteART is a whole other can of worms. Sometimes I wonder if it should be forbidden.
ReplyDelete