THE issue at today is no longer movie or something unheard of in our society. The issue involves having children from infidelity raised as offspring of a marriage. The most recent one was the case of a woman who gave birth to four children, and none belonged to her husband who has been taking responsibility for them over the years, with the conviction that the children belonged to him.

When this issue was being discussed somewhere in town, a man said many children of pastors of a particular Christian denomination would fail DNA test, because the pastors were not always at home. Rather, they were always on the mountains for one form of prayers or the other. So, their wives are being sexually taken care of by other men around their neighborhood.

This issue has become worrisome to the point that many men cannot boast that they are not affected. In fact, it has become a general fear in town that who knows who would be the next unfortunate husband.

I think this issue of paternity challenge is taking infidelity to a dangerous level. What was becoming rampant used to be extra marital affairs. But, today extra-marital affairs has graduated to paternity fraud which is a dangerous dimension to marital stability. Or how can one person impregnate somebody’s wife, and the husband will now be responsible for the upkeep of the pregnancy and the resultant children?

While I know that this unpleasant situation did not start in this generation, the fear is that if something is not done to tame it, the marriage institution would soon lose its appeal to the upcoming generation. That’s why this is aimed at addressing it from the causative point to the solution proffering point. We will also consider what to do if one is caught in the web of paternity fraud in marriage.

What are the causes of this robbing Peter to pay Paul form of paternity fraud?

In considering the causes, I will not blame personalities because it takes both sexes to produce a child. So, let us consider the following issues:

 

• Lack of sexual fulfilment: One of the reasons for marriage contract is sexual enjoyment. It means that where it is lacking, infidelity becomes highly inevitable. It is therefore the responsibility of each married couple to do all to ensure sexual satisfaction between them. If this is not achieved, the door for infidelity becomes wide open, and the result could be a child out of wedlock, especially for the wife, since she will be the one to carry the pregnancy. So, she has to grabble with how to conceal the shame of a pregnancy from her infidelity. To ensure sexual fulfilment, partners must be readily available for each other, and be good at performing the sexual roles for each other. Anything short of this, is to create room for infidelity.

 

• Lack of emotional stability: A spouse who is emotionally traumatised cannot have great sex life with his or her spouse. The wife is more prone to the negative consequences of emotional instability. She is more emotional than the husband, and once she doesn’t get emotional stability in the home, she becomes highly vulnerable to temptations from outside. Thus, falling into the infidelity which usually leads to paternity fraud in her marriage. It behoves on a married couple to ensure that emotional stability is given top priority in the marriage if paternity fraud will be kept at bay in the home. They must give each other peace of mind such that temptations to engage in extra marital affairs is eliminated or made difficult.

 

• Lack of economic strength: When a marriage suffers too long from lack of financial and material resources, the temptation to engage in extra marital affairs becomes very high. Many men take advantage of the opposite sex who find themselves in such chronic situation of lack. Even men have fallen into the hands of wealthy women who lured them with their wealth. So, each couple should ensure that legitimate means are deployed to enable them meet their basic needs. Anything short of this exposes the wives to sexual temptations. Of course, one does not rule out exception of misbehaviour that will defy the availability of the above. To such, there is nothing, except divine or spiritual intervention that can solve the problem.

Conclusively, if paternity fraud rears its ugly head in a marriage, like we have heard of in recent time, the husband will have to make a choice to remain alive and take it in faith, or destroy his life. Like we all know, there is nothing new under the heavens. Whatever happens, one must develop the skills to move on in life. Though, it’s something traumatic, yet it’s not going to be the end of the world. A lot of counselling must be embraced for a man to survive such a traumatised experience. Otherwise, it will end in disaster for the personalities involved.

This also leads me to offer a word of caution to married women to exercise caution in giving infidelity a chance. Like someone said, infidelity will lead one farther than one is prepared to go. Many wives concealing the paternity of their children in the marriage never planned it to happen. They simply found the bitter pills in their mouth, and thus have to swallow it. So, let us avoid infidelity like a plague. Interestingly, many of those children involved are fathered by married men in many cases. So, the blame cannot be laid at the door step of the wives only. Husbands are also guilty as the wives. May God help us to stay sane to safe the marriage institution.

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