[Avodah] A question of Yichus

[Zev Sero]

On 11/06/2012 3:20 PM, harchinam wrote:
> This distinction is significant because once a man has raised a child
> for a number of years the child and he are bonded and the father
> presumably loves the child and so just dumping the child and
> disappearing from his/her life is not so simple. The child is
> dependent on the person who they have known as their father both
> physically and emotionally. As RSB says above, it is comparable to
> the situation with an adoptive father, who also has no biological
> ties to the child but loves them anyway.

If he doesn't *want* to disown the child, the case wouldn't come up in
the first place.  The question can only come up when the husband has
no such feelings, and is looking for a legal way to relieve himself
of the unjust burden that has been placed on him.  In such a case,
what difference does it make how many years he was deceived, and how
much he bonded with the cuckoo's child in his nest?


On 11/06/2012 4:02 PM, Doron Beckerman wrote:
> I'm not sure it is that simple. If he indeed has his name on the ID and
> legal papers, by affixing his signature on these documents (if necessary)
> he will have established a chazakah that it is his child and he cannot
> undo that via "yakir." See Rema EH 4:28.

Who said anything about his signing the papers?  Why is that necessary?
He can refuse to sign the papers if he likes; what will they do to him?
All he has to do is not object when the mother registers the child, and
allow people to make the natural (and halachic) assumption that it's his.
Thus he preserves his power to declare the child a mamzer, and he can
hold that in reserve as a weapon to prevent the mother from unjustly
extorting money from him.

-- 
Zev Sero
zev at sero.name