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shotgun marriage: 1 : a marriage forced or required because
of pregnancy -- called also shotgun wedding.
Raising someone else’s children can’t be good for
the genes. When it’s not by choice, it can be even
worse. Consider the shotgun marriage scenario where a man
marries a women on the belief that she is pregnant with his child,
but later discovers that the child is not his own. Should
he be required to continue in the marriage, and support the errant
wife and her child, or should we permit him to divorce, terminating
the family relationship, at least, because of the deception involved?
In a line of nineteenth century cases, relief was denied the cuckolded
husband, despite clear evidence that the child was another’s,
and that his wife had deliberately lied about it. The shotgun
wedding was upheld. Several prominent reasons were offered
for rebuffing the husband’s request. Chief among these
were lack of judicial authority (Long v Long, 77 N.C. 304,
1877), the husband’s own negligence in failing to determine
the true paternity of the child (Foss v Foss, 94 Mass. 26,
12 Allen 26, 1866), and the so-called unclean hands doctrine
(Fairchild v Fairchild, 43 N.J. Eq. 473, 11 A. 426, 1887),
where the husband’s moral fault in engaging in premarital
sex barred him from obtaining a remedy to his wife’s fraud. Husband
and wife were equally guilty, and the law would not grant relief
to someone who had unclean hands.
Sustaining the shotgun marriage is more favorable to the wife
than her cuckolded husband. The rule reflects the nature
of a bargain where sex is traded for the promise of familial support. If
the female provides sex, then her expectation is that the male
will support any fruit of their union. Why should we let
him out simply because the baby is not his own. He got the
benefit of the bargain – the chance to copulate – so
he should be required to keep his promise. This is consistent
with evolutionary principles. The female’s egg is a
scarcer resource than the male’s gamete, and it is economically
sound to place a higher value over it. Letting the woman
enforce the fraudulent marriage, reflects this judgment.
In fact, maybe no damage is done. The cuckolded man is held
to the contract, but he has continued reproductive opportunity
with his wife, a woman he knows to be fertile and capable of bringing
offspring to term. An older child, albeit not his own, can
provide assistance in raising younger full-blooded offspring. The
actual biological father wins, as well, since his child is ensured
support from a two-parent family. Everyone’s reproductive
interests are advanced.
But why should a male be scammed into supporting another man’s
offspring? Beginning in the late 1800’s, courts began
to loosen in their point of view. If the promiscuous woman
cannot persuade the biological father into marrying her, but tricks
another sexual partner into a wedding, that marriage will be terminated
upon discovery of the deception. Under this regime, a father
is not required to support a child who is genetically unrelated
to him. |
