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At a Ciba symposium, held during the 1960s, one delegate quietly announced, following his work ‘in a town of south-east England’, that 30% of the children he examined could not have been the product of their alleged parents. Elliot E Philipp, the obstetrician performing this work, was examining blood groups as part of his concern over the rhesus factor, these parents being rhesus-negative and rhesus-positive (therefore likely to have problems with their second child). There was no reason to suspect a high degree of infidelity among them, and Philipp’s finding caused astonishment at that meeting.
No one knows how many offspring in the general population are not the product of couples who believe (or assume) they are the true biological parents. The actual parentage is not necessarily important, provided that genetic inheritance (of some harmful character, for example) is not an issue and provided also that the couple continues to care for their offspring. Many a mother, having perhaps consorted with two or more partners before a pregnancy’s arrival encouraged marriage, does not necessarily know if her chosen partner is the actual father of their first child. Many another mother, if also consorting with another (or others) during her marriage/relationship, is possibly equally uncertain of the parentage of subsequent offspring. None of this need matter greatly, provided - as before - genetic questions do not become disturbingly relevant or the marriage/relationship disintegrates.
The Child Support Agency was initiated by the Child Support Act of 1991. Its brief, in essence, was to extract maintenance payments from the absent parent (generally the father). The Agency was active in this regard, even extracting money from pay-packets if that was more profitable. In some cases a father had made generous provision, perhaps leaving the matrimonial home and a lump sum to the former partner on behalf of the children, but the Agency could discount previous arrangements and insist upon regular maintenance in addition to earlier benefaction. In other cases a departed father could resent that a new lover, perhaps the breakdown’s cause, could apparently be benefiting from maintenance payments directed to the children.
It is therefore easy to understand why various fathers wondered if they were the actual biological father. If not, however much the children call him ‘Dad’, that being the role he formerly fulfilled, he is no longer obliged by law to contribute money to their upkeep. Paternity testing therefore became an issue, and the CSA began to offer its own ‘discounted’ DNA testing service in July 1995. Any father who suspected, or believed or knew, he was not the father could take advantage. Even if he had no grounds for suspicion he would still benefit greatly if the tests proved infidelity. As lotteries go it was worth the gamble, the test’s cost perhaps being about the same as each month’s maintenance payment.
The cost of a test has been reduced since this scheme began, and is now £318 (if paid in advance). The price is discounted because the Agency has already done much of the preliminary work, in arranging a laboratory etc. If the results are positive, and the man involved is indeed the father of the child (or children), his fee is retained. If the results are negative he is not only absolved from further maintenance payments but he receives a full refund of his fee.
In the year 1995/96 a total of 1,377 alleged fathers were tested, a number which rose to 6,131 in 1997/98. Of that latter total 13% of the tested fathers proved not to be the actual fathers. One advantage of the test, apart from its affirmation of yea or nay, is that the parentage dispute is more cheaply and more quickly resolved than in any court action. If the test is refused (by the alleged father) such an action will be necessary, with the court drawing its own conclusions from the refusal. There may, of course, be medical or religious reasons for objecting to the test, this involving the taking of blood samples from all three people concerned, the alleged father, the mother and the child.
As yet the numbers involved are tiny, and far short of Elliot Philipp’s estimate of 30% of alleged fathers being - as it were - not guilty, but the numbers will probably grow as more and more such fathers decide to test their suspicions, and possibly gain financially from doing so. In parenthesis, assuming that infidelity is not a modern phenomenon, it is interesting to wonder at all those utterances when family albums are being inspected: ‘He’s the spitting image, isn’t he, but I’m not so sure about his brother. Where did he come from?’ Where indeed!
Anthony Smith