Jamaica: 1 in 3 men face paternity fraud, Men, 'wage gap', societal pressure blamed!

Tyrael · #1 14th-October-2007

Quote:

Why women give men 'jacket'? Social pressure, financial security cited as major causes
published: Sunday | October 14, 2007

Lovelette Brooks, News Editor

The revelation that some 33 per cent of Jamaican men have been named 'father' to children they have not sired has brought into sharp focus some moral and socioeconomic issues affecting women in Jamaica.

"The truth is that the phenomenon is complex, as well as human," says gender consultant, Dr. Glenda Simms, in dismissing the stereotypes of the faithless wife with regular lovers, as well as the bored housewife.

"Too many men in Jamaica still believe in the 'nuff gal' syndrome," Simms claims. "They have this need to go outside and conquer. It's not enough to have a woman at home, they must also have their friend's wives. So, a web of relationships is created, and paternity must be 'hidden' if pregnancy occurs."

Absent fathers

In many cases, she says, the absent father is a problem. Men often stay away from home, some albeit for work, but others are out having a good time. The woman will then look for companionship on the outside, Simms posits.

In other cases, she says, a woman may marry a man she really did not want to marry, for economic reasons. So then she has a lover on the side. If she gets pregnant, she is going to attribute fatherhood to her husband. When women cheat on their husbands, they very rarely take precautions against pregnancy, says Simms.

"A woman having an extra-marital affair is the exception to the rule. She might not be monogamous by nature, but is forced to be because society dictates this. So, having another man's child while in a committed relationship is a social taboo," states Simms.

Research out of Australia, where DNA paternity tests have been widely used since the 1980s, supports Simms' views. The research found that most women in "paternity cases" were involved in sexual relationships that "overlapped" or happened "in quick succes-sion," as well as "one-off" encounters with friends, acquaintance and old flames that usually did not involve either infidelity or deception because the women were either unattached or only "minimally attached" to a dying, old or embryonic relationship at the time.

Unplanned sex

One woman, for example, had unplanned sex with a long-time friend - her first encounter after the death of her husband a year earlier. Several days later, she met a new man, who became her regular partner. Logically, he had to be the 'father' of her child.

Equally crucial to the paternity fraud debate is truth in relationships and the rights of the child in terms of his/her lineage and medical history.

"A child's identity and heritage, parentage and the responsibilities that go with that, as well as a person's blood line, health issues and medical history, are very important," cautions Simms.

However, Dr. Donna Hope, culture researcher, cites many reasons why women, over the years, have had well-guarded paternity secrets. She suggests that a combination of factors, including resource constraints, class and status, are behind many of these fraud cases.

"Women in Jamaica still see their children as their 'bank account' and 'old-age pension'," states Hope. "Therefore, they will have two or three lovers and when they become pregnant, the named father will be the one who is most financially stable. Women have been choosing who they want to 'father' their children for a long time."

She adds: "Genetics also play a big part. Believe it or not, some women still want bright-skin, straight-hair children, so a Caucasian lover would make an ideal 'father'. The family name is also perceived as taking the child very far. If the father don't care for the child, his family will, they reason. All of this is playing on the territorial nature of families in Jamaica and the adherence to class and status," Hope says.

Creates mistrust

What impact does this have on family life and social relations? According to Hope, this creates mistrust; men are now finding out that women are a great deal more cunning and calculating.

"More and more, men are successfully challenging their paternity in divorce and child- support cases, revealing a huge change in the relationship between men and women," she discloses. "Men who are being divorced increasingly call into question the paternity of children conceived during the marriage," she adds.

Dr. Leith Dunn, head of the Gender Studies Department at the University of the West Indies, argues that women have been forced into multiple partnership arrangements due to economic reasons, hence the "unfortunately" high rate of paternal exclusion in Jamaica.

Says Dunn: "The underlying assumption is that men need higher salaries because they are expected to be the main providers for their families. Women tend to be paid lower wages for work of equal value because the assumption is that their income is supplementary to that of the main (male) breadwinner. In reality, many women have main responsibility for their families (financial and social responsibility). This disparity forces many women to have multiple partners."

VoxPop - What are your views on women who give men 'jackets'?

Prudence Reid, 44: Well, it no really right. Suppose they don't know who is the father because they keep more than one partner and then they don't know. It no right, but sometimes things happen. It can affect a family because that man might want to find his child and that child might want to find her father.

Kerry Lyons, 29: It no right, but a dem tings de a gwaan. It no must mash up the family cause dem na go know so early, and even when they find out, it still na mash up the family.

Shenise Troupe, 19: If a woman gi a man jacket, a wickedness. If you tell him today say a fi him, one day him must find out, cause the child probably doesn't look like the father.

Simone Smith, 30: Nuff man fi get 'jacket' because dem not minding dem own, but a mind who a no fi dem. A nuff a dem ting de a gwan inna the garrison communities. But DNA too dear (expensive), so dem just take the child because dem just well want to say dem a father.

- Interviews conducted by Mark Beckford/Staff Reporter

Article source.

**Percy** · #2 15th-October-2007

Its the same old excuses, wherever you go.

Fidelity

For her, this is the SINGLE, MOST VITALLY important and CRUCIAL quality in a relationship.

If she has a ‘love affair’ with a ‘charismatic’ ‘other man’ who has ‘swept her off her feet’, whilst she is in a ‘relationship’, it is ONLY because she ‘had to’.

‘For Love’.

Her partner, obviously, a Man!! (tm) had been ‘neglectful’ or ‘abusive’ or ‘heartless’ or ‘unappreciative’ or ‘taken her for granted’.

If he is ‘getting his end away’ with ‘a bit on the side’ its because ‘he’s a cheating bastard’ who ‘can’t keep his hands off’ ‘that slut’/’tart’.

FFFF · #3 16th-October-2007

Words of wisdom percy.. thats how it is..

Meanwhile, what can be done?

To be honest, not much really, if the state tries to intervene, it will only fuck things up even more, as it usually does..

In a place like jamaica, you gotta know the full history to really understand why things are the way they are..

Let folk sort their own shit out..

Adrian · #4 16th-October-2007

Quote:

Research out of Australia, where DNA paternity tests have been widely used since the 1980s, supports Simms' views. The research found that most women in "paternity cases" were involved in sexual relationships that "overlapped" or happened "in quick succes-sion," as well as "one-off" encounters with friends, acquaintance and old flames that usually did not involve either infidelity or deception because the women were either unattached or only "minimally attached" to a dying, old or embryonic relationship at the time.

I think this paragraph is all too easy to skim right past. Consider what this is saying. It didn't take some unmitigated bitch. It was just a mistake, resulting not even from some basic infidelity but just general promiscuity. Granted the woman is being a little careless with other people's lives, but this sort of thing is what would probably be construed as a normal amount of promiscuity in modern society. And, yet, I have heard heart-rending stories of men that find out when their children are like 12 or something that: "OOPS! Not my kid after all." I saw somewhere that some 4% of men experience a paternity fraud like this when they really didn't have a reason to suspect it.

Doesn't it just show what a fraud modern, especially politically correct, values are? Of course, I am not saying, here, that we should give the death penalty to women for adultery or something. That, in itself, would probably be a new thing for we who supposedly live in the tradition of English common law. It is more just the social norms outside of the law that men come to accept (out of necessity as much as anything) that women aren't chaste and that it is some kind of really oppressively mean thing to look down on slutty women. But, before you think "Sure, what the hell," consider the long run ramifications. Sure it's no big deal as long as there aren't consequences. Do we really have to learn the hard way that there always are? And, how often do they end up being "worse than anything you even imagined"? I mean, when I got married, I worried about my wife cheating on me or something like that. And, even then, one tends to get some arrogant riposte to such a fear, usually something to the effect of "grow up". I never even dreamed of the real horrors that can befall an honest man.

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Jamaica: 1 in 3 men face paternity fraud, Men, 'wage gap', societal pressure blamed!

Jamaica: 1 in 3 men face paternity fraud, Men, 'wage gap', societal pressure blamed!

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