A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive father is a male who has become the child's parent through the legal process of adoption. A biological father is the male genetic contributor to the creation of the infant, through sexual intercourse or sperm donation. A biological father may have legal obligations to a child not raised by him, such as an obligation of monetary support. A putative father is a man whose biological relationship to a child is alleged but has not been established. A stepfather is a male who is the husband of a child's mother and they may form a family unit, but who generally does not have the legal rights and responsibilities of a parent in relation to the child.
A parent is a caregiver of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is the caretaker of a child. A biological parent is a person whose gamete resulted in a child, a male through the sperm, and a female through the ovum. Biological parents are first-degree relatives and have 50% genetic meet. A female can also become a parent through surrogacy. Some parents may be adoptive parents, who nurture and raise an offspring, but are not biologically related to the child. Orphans without adoptive parents can be raised by their grandparents or other family members.
Child custody, conservatorship and guardianship describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent and the parent's child, such as the right of the parent to make decisions for the child, and the parent's duty to care for the child.
Child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid directly or indirectly by an obligor to an obligee for the care and support of children of a relationship that has been terminated, or in some cases never existed. Often the obligor is a non-custodial parent. The obligee is typically a custodial parent, a caregiver, a guardian.
Paternity law refers to body of law underlying legal relationship between a father and his biological or adopted children and deals with the rights and obligations of both the father and the child to each other as well as to others. A child's paternity may be relevant in relation to issues of legitimacy, inheritance and rights to a putative father's title or surname, as well as the biological father's rights to child custody in the case of separation or divorce and obligations for child support.
DNA paternity testing is the use of DNA profiles to determine whether an individual is the biological parent of another individual. Paternity testing can be especially important when the rights and duties of the father are in issue and a child's paternity is in doubt. Tests can also determine the likelihood of someone being a biological grandparent. Though genetic testing is the most reliable standard, older methods also exist, including ABO blood group typing, analysis of various other proteins and enzymes, or using human leukocyte antigen antigens. The current techniques for paternity testing are using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). Paternity testing can now also be performed while the woman is still pregnant from a blood draw.
A paternal bond is the human bond between a father and his child.
In common law and civil law, a rebuttable presumption is an assumption made by a court that is taken to be true unless someone proves otherwise. For example, a defendant in a criminal case is presumed innocent until proven guilty. It is often associated with prima facie evidence.
In the law of evidence, a presumption of a particular fact can be made without the aid of proof in some situations. The invocation of a presumption shifts the burden of proof from one party to the opposing party in a court trial.
The main family law of Japan is Part IV of Civil Code. The Family Register Act contain provisions relating to the family register and notifications to the public office.
Paternity fraud, also known as misattributed paternity or paternal discrepancy, occurs when a man is incorrectly identified as the biological father of a child. The underlying assumption of "paternity fraud" is that the mother deliberately misidentified the biological father, while "misattributed paternity" may be accidental. Paternity fraud is related to the historical understanding of adultery.
Mater semper certa est is a Roman-law principle which has the power of praesumptio iuris et de iure, meaning that no counter-evidence can be made against this principle. It provides that the mother of the child is conclusively established, from the moment of birth, by the mother's role in the birth.
In genetics, a non-paternity event is the situation in which someone who is presumed to be an individual's father is not in fact the biological father. This presumption may be on the part of the individual, the parents, or the attending midwife, physician or nurse. Non-paternity may result from sperm donation, undisclosed adoption, heteropaternal superfecundation, promiscuity, paternity fraud, or sexual assault, as well as medical mistakes, for example, mixups during procedures such as in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination. Where there is uncertainty, the most reliable technique for establishing paternity is genetic testing; however, there is still a risk of error due to the potential for gene mutations or scoring errors.
Scots family law is the body of laws in Scotland which regulate certain aspects of adult relationships and the rights and obligations in respect of children.
In the United States of America, the putative father registry is a state level legal option for unmarried men to document through a notary public any woman they engage with in intercourse, for the purpose of retaining parental rights for any child they may father.
Presumption of paternity in paternity law and common law is the legal determination that a man is "presumed to be" a child's biological father without additional supportive evidence, usually as a result of marriage.
Law in Australia with regard to children is often based on what is considered to be in the best interest of the child. The traditional and often used assumption is that children need both a mother and a father, which plays an important role in divorce and custodial proceedings, and has carried over into adoption and fertility procedures. As of April 2018 all Australian states and territories allow adoption by same-sex couples.
Adoption in the Philippines is a process of granting social, emotional and legal family and kinship membership to an individual from the Philippines, usually a child. It involves a transfer of parental rights and obligations and provides family membership. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) defines adoption as a "socio-legal process of giving a permanent family to a child whose parents have voluntarily or involuntarily given up their parental rights."
ABC v. The State is a case decided by a two-judge bench of the Supreme court of India, which held that an unwed woman belonging to the Christian faith can become a legal guardian of her child without the father's consent.
Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U.S. 110 (1989), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving substantive due process in the context of paternity law. Splitting five to four, the Court rejected a challenge to a California law that presumed that a married woman's child was a product of that marriage, holding that the due-process rights of a man who claimed to be a child's biological father had not been violated.
