In law, Paternity is the legal acknowledgment of the parental relationship between a man and a child usually based on several factors.

Under common law, a child born to the wife during a marriage is usually presumed to be the husband's child. This concept is the "presumption of lawful paternity", and assigns to the husband complete rights, duties and obligations as to the child.

The presumption, however, can be sometimes be rebutted by evidence to the contrary, at least prior to a formal court ruling involving the putative paternity. Visit the to learn more about paternity law.

Where paternity of the child is in question, a party may ask the court to determine paternity of one or several possible fathers based initially upon sworn statements and then upon testimony or other evidence.

In cases of paternity fraud, there are many potential victims: the defrauded man, the child deprived of a relationship with his/her biological father, the biological father who is deprived of his relationship with his child.

Paternity fraud is the act of falsely naming a man to be the biological father of a child, particularly for the purpose of collecting child financial support, by the mother when she knows or suspects that he is not the biological father. Learn more of paternity fraud with the .

In some jurisdictions in some countries, there is limited opportunity to legally challenge the assumption of paternity.

For example, by forbidding men to challenge paternity, especially in the context of marriage, by limiting the amount of time allowed to challenge paternity, or by allowing women to make a claim paternity without adequate chance for rebuttal by the alleged father.

But the ready availability of genetic fingerprinting allows men suspicious of paternity fraud to request a paternity test to make positive identification of the father.

A maternity or paternity identification test is conducted to establish whether a person is the biological parent of another person.

Scientific tests can now determine paternity at 13 weeks into a pregnancy using non-invasive testing methods in many cases. This involves a simple blood sample taken from the pregnant woman's arm. The pregnant female's blood carries the fetus' DNA which can be compared to the DNA of the alleged father. For more information about paternity laws and conflicts within it, then visit the for more details.