| caption: |
Chapter Three. Phases of Life |
| caption: |
biological and social fatherhood |
| text: |
Nevertheless, a child born to a wedded woman belonged to the clan of her husband, and the son of a divorced woman, though perhaps raised in the house of his maternal grandparents or that of his mother's brother, ultimately entered the legal father's morung. More often than not a husband whose wife gave birth to a first child fathered by another accepted the situation with good grace and, even though the identity of the biological father was known, treated the child as his own. The biological father was expected to pay no attention to his natural offspring and the child suffered neither disadvantage nor stigma. In the house of the legal father it had full rights of inheritance and was no less privileged than younger and legitimate brothers and sisters. Consequently, many a man belonged to a clan and morung other than that of his biological father, but as biological and legal father were necessarily of clans and morungs maintaining connubial relations with those of the mother, no difficulty arose over the regulation of marriage. |
