According to The Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health, Paternity Fraud, or as it is sometimes called, Paternity Discrepancy, occurs when a child is biologically fathered by someone other than the man who is identified as the actual father. This can occur when a woman is having an unknown extramarital affair. It may also occur when a woman has multiple sex partners, but identifies one of them as the father for purposes of receiving an increased amount of child support. Child support is the financial contribution from the non-custodial parent to the custodial parent towards the expenses of raising the child. Generally child support expenses include the basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Every child is entitled to be supported by both parents until they reach the age of majority, usually 18, or become emancipated (free from legal, social or political restrictions). In Mississippi, the age of emancipation for the purpose of child support is 21. Child support enforcement is a joint effort of the Federal and State government to help families establish paternity when needed, and obtain and enforce child support orders. Child support guidelines differ greatly from state to state, but a rough estimate may be obtained by a child support calculator. Click here to estimate your child support in Mississippi.
Paternity fraud can have enormous psychological consequences. One of the worst paternity results we have given was from a man who had been married for twenty years. The husband had noticed suspicious behavior in his wife around the time of his last son’s conception, but he never investigated it. Thirteen years later this husband began notice suspicious behavior in his wife once again. He hired an investigator and an extramarital affair was discovered. At this time, he decided to have a paternity test conducted on his children. The results revealed that the youngest child whom he had raised for 13 years was not his biological child. You can only imagine the emotional pain, heartbreak and anger this family experienced. While the mother wanted the child to have a more luxurious life, she robbed this child of a relationship with his true biological father and betrayed her husband. The husband will always be the child’s dad, but he is not the true biological father that he was perceived to be. Even if the discovery of paternity fraud does not result in the breakup of a relationship or marriage, the psychological trauma inflicted on the child and father can be severe.
While anyone may be a victim of paternity fraud, research indicates that those at the greatest risk for paternity fraud tend to be in lower socioeconomic groups, not married and have multiple sex partners. Some literature suggests that paternity fraud may be as high as 10 percent of the population. Mississippi law does allow the use of genetic testing to determine the probability of paternity. According to the Mississippi Bar when the probability of fatherhood is at least 98 percent, the court will presume paternity. Thus, modern genetic testing provides a potent tool for actually proving or disproving paternity fraud.
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