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("The mother is always certain") is a Roman-law principle which has the power of , meaning that no counter-evidence can be made against this principle (literally: presumption of law and by law). It provides that the mother of the child is conclusively established, from the moment of birth, by the mother's role in the birth. Since egg donation, or embryo donation with surrogacy, started using the technique of ''in-vitro'' fertilization, the principle of has been shaken, since a child may have a ''genetic'' and a ''gestational'' ("
birth Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the ...
"), let alone a "social", mother who are different individuals. Since then some countries have converted the old natural law to an equivalent codified law; in 1997 Germany introduced paragraph 1571 ("motherhood") of the BGB (
civil code A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property, family, and obligations. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdictions with a civil code, a number of the core ar ...
) reading ("the mother of a child is the woman who gave birth to it"). This has also been tested in the British case of Freddy McConnell. The Roman law principle, however, does not stop at the mother, in fact it continues with ("The father is always uncertain"). This was regulated by the law of ("the father is he to whom marriage points"). Essentially
paternity fraud 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 miside ...
had originally been a marriage fraud in the civil codeIn Germany, the historic ("action in dispute of legitimacy") was simply renamed as ("action in dispute of fatherhood") when legal paternity was redefined. due to this principle. Today some married fathers use the modern tools of
DNA testing Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
to ensure a certainty on their fatherhood.


See also

* Lydia Fairchild, a woman whose DNA tests seemed to imply she was not the mother of the child she just gave birth to.


Notes


References

Legal doctrines and principles Legal rules with Latin names Paternity Roman law {{AncientRome-law-stub