Razib Khan of Discover Blogs says
An urban myth, often asserted with a wink & a nod in some circles, is that a very high proportion of children in Western countries are not raised by their biological father, and in fact are not aware that their putative biological father is not their real biological father. The numbers I see and hear vary, but 10% is a low bound.
Khan quotes another biologist, Marlene Zuk, on how enormous people imagine cuckoldry to be
When asked to estimate the frequency of misassigned paternity in the general population, most people hazard a guess of 10%, 20% or even 30%, with the last number coming from a class of biology undergraduates in a South Carolina university that I polled last year. I pointed out that this would mean that nearly 20 people in the class of 60-some students had lived their lives calling the wrong man Dad, at least biologically. They just nodded cynically, undaunted.
Khan continues (emphasis mine)
What are the real numbers? Zuck asserts that they’re more in the 1-5% range, with 3.7% being a high-bound figure for one study. This varies by culture and socioeconomic group, and the segment of the population being surveyed. Studies which rely on a data set consisting of men who have requested paternity tests are strongly sample biased toward those who have a reason to have suspicions. ... And yet even in the cases of men who have suspicions only a minority have misattributed paternity.
Got that? The high figures you hear cited, generally instigated by bitter divorced men and other “men’s rights” activists, and abetted by tabloid cable shows, are heavily inflated because paternity tests are sought mainly by men who are already suspicious. And yet, as Khan points out, even when men imagine cause for suspicion the suspicions are usually unfounded.
3.7% seems small, but that's
Submitted by Primateus (not verified) on Wed, 2011-04-13 12:39.3.7% seems small, but that's over 1 million men in the united states who are raising a kid who's the product of his wife's whoring.
Even when men imagine cause for suspicion, about 30% of the time they're correct. When you factor in that most cheating women are not looking to get pregnant by the other guy, it doesn't paint a pretty picture of infidelity rates.
Eh. We already know
Submitted by figleaf on Wed, 2011-04-13 15:53.Eh. We already know infidelity rates are high -- for every unfaithful (heterosexual) man there's an unfaithful woman and vice versa. What it really means, though, if your figures are right, is that there are a million men in the U.S. with little kids who love them and trust them and need them, admire them, want them, and grow up having utter faith in them. Even though they're not their biological fathers. Oh wait, there are actually millions more who are legally adopted and yet they love their fathers and somehow their fathers love them every bit as much as they're loved. Even when they no longer love their partners and even when they don't even know the biological mothers.
That's the queer thing about the whole "raising another man's bastards" thing. It's the cuckolding man who's losing out on... pretty much everything that's wonderful about being a father except maybe that initial ejaculation. In particular, every child you raise is a child who'll give you wet little-kid kisses when they're really small, will come home for the holidays when they're in college, and will call to say "hello in there" when you're in your retirement home, and who'll weep genuine salt-water tears when you pass away. The other guy? He won't get shit.
More to the point, the other guy's a giant snivelling cowardly piece of crap who won't even stand up for his own flesh and blood.
Thanks, P.
fl
The kids love them, sure.
Submitted by Primateus (not verified) on Wed, 2011-04-13 17:31.The kids love them, sure. But kids feel stronger attachments to their real father all else being equal. The quest to identify one's parents is a perennial one, whether it ends in disappointment or not. And real fathers feel stronger attachment to their biological children. Stepfathers, for example, do not feel the same instinctive beneficence towards their spouse's children as they do to their genetic kin. Basic evolution. It would be shocking if this were not true generally.
The cuckolding man is losing out every time he wears a condom. He also may have biological children he recognises, and plenty of other kids strewn around the country he doesn't (and isn't even aware of). Plus, not everyone wants kids.