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I think this is a very fascinating legal idea. I wish more people seriously discussed it.

• nraynaud 7y ago
  Oh, and child support ends at the end of education (ie university if they go there), not at 18.
• belorn 7y ago
  Its a very fascinating legal concept, through I very much doubt the french law function like that. It would be very interesting if we defined the concept of parents as being the adults with closest social link with the child. The idea of child support as being something imposed would then go away, as child support is generally only contested in the case when the adult have no social link with the child and thus no involvement beyond paying the bill. It would also make same-sex relations identical to other relations as the law would not care about which adults have closest social link with the child. Marriage vs Cohabitation would also be a area which the law could ignore, and the concept of society taking care of children in need would become natural as there will always be two adults that is the closest social link, even if some of those are paid by the state.
  • x220 7y ago
    It sounds to me like you think your plan would solve all problems with no additional costs or drawbacks for anyone involved.
    • belorn 7y ago
      All systems has cost so which one are you considering? The current system has a lot of costs and drawbacks. Using the marriage as the norm has caused a lot of issue here in Sweden and the system is currently being tweaked every year to account for a changing culture. 1/3 of couples with children live as cohabitation rather than registered/marriage. Family law has to keep up. Same-sex families with children is an other area which is growing and the law has seen updated several times the last 10 years. Rather than having laws getting tweaked and warped each year to account for a changing culture, maybe it is time to address it from a different perspective. If a child treat the adults around them as their parents, the adult treat the child as their child, and social environment around them treat the adults as the parents of the child, then why not also have the law treat them as the parents of the child? Outside of medicine does the DNA then really matter?
• YorkshireSeason 7y ago
  Like most "very fascinating" ideas it's also clearly false. Paternity is clearly and demonstrably a biological concept. You can easily see this when pondering the idea of having sex with your parent, and the possibility of amplifying congenital birth defects. Note that if a child is misled about his or her biological father, the probability of incest increases. Be that as it may, paternity is one of the most important and impactful relationship humans have, many social rules, taboos and rituals have evolved around it, marriage being one.
  • folbec 7y ago
    Maybe you should have a look at roman successions, even if they were generally adopting relativelly close relatives. Paternity is a social construct. There are cultures where paternity simply is not important. In a matriachal society, a person's mother's brother is apt to be more important than a biological father, sometime to the point of not knowing who the father is (because it is unimportant). https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-mosuo-matriarchy-men-live-better-where-women-are-in-charge-a-627363.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-mosuo-mat...
    • YorkshireSeason 7y ago
      Paternity is a biological construct. Royal intermarriage has been practiced by ruling dynasties since times immemorial. It had often been observed that this leads to problems and infertility, and indeed this is the root cause for the incest taboos that you find in varying forms and shapes in most cultures and religions. However, it has only been with the rise of modern biology and genetics in the 20th century, that this practice was abandoned. Speaking of Ancient Rome, it has been speculated that the decline of the Roman Empire was in parts caused by the failure of the ruling families to produce enough children. Naturally, we don't have enough information today to confirm or disprove such speculation. I have no idea why you link to an article about the Mosuo. It has no bearing on the biological nature of paternity.
    • x220 7y ago
      Paternity is an objective biological relationship as well as a social construct. Just because paternity can be a social construct does not mean that all other socially constructed alternatives are equally useful, or can even lead to a stable society. The mere fact that the traditional Western concept of paternity has been around for hundreds of years means that it hasn't led to our degeneration or destruction and at the very least is compatible with a productive society. The fact that most notions of paternity are almost universal means that there is something fundamental driving this which can only be overridden in a handful of cultures. Perhaps there is some instinctual male drive to be more invested in their genetic offspring. Investing in their own genetic offspring increases their biological fitness and makes them more likely to pass on their traits of favoritism. Perhaps in cultures that don't have these widely held traditions around paternity aren't able to secure paternal investment and encourage long term monogamous relationships, which leads to the culture's destruction, degeneration, or stagnation.