Revision summary
Older tests excluded alleged fathers with blood groups and HLA. STR DNA profiling can strongly include a man as biological father. Y-STRs track the male line; mtDNA does not decide paternity. Prenatal tests can use fetal DNA in maternal blood. Kinship still distinguishes social pater from genitor.
Model answer
Introduction
Disputed paternity is a legal and kinship claim about who the genitor is. Anthropology already knew social fatherhood. Recent techniques name a biological probability.
Body
The older kit
- Blood groups (ABO, Rh) could exclude a man. They could not prove him. Landsteiner made the first serological exclusions.
- HLA and protein polymorphisms raised the power of exclusion but still left many men unexcluded.
- Kinship systems already split genitor and pater, as in older Nayar visiting husbands or Trobriand beliefs about conception. The lab does not erase the social father.
Recent techniques
- DNA profiling, after Alec Jeffreys, uses STRs (short tandem repeats). A child must match one allele at each locus from the alleged father, barring mutation.
- Multiplex STR kits, used in Indian forensic labs, yield paternity indices and very high probabilities when the mother is tested too.
- Y-chromosome STRs follow the paternal line. Mitochondrial DNA follows the mother and does not decide paternity.
- SNP arrays and sequencing can work on degraded samples. Non-invasive prenatal paternity tests use fetal DNA in maternal blood.
- Limits: twins, close relatives as alternative fathers, mutations, and chain-of-custody. Ethics of consent and of revealing incest or infidelity sit with the result.
Anthropological caution
- A probability is not a kinship system. Malinowski’s Trobriand pater remains a jural person even when a lab names another genitor.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD DP[Disputed paternity] --> EX[Blood group exclusion] DP --> DNA[STR DNA probability] DNA --> LAW[Court index] DP --> SOC[Pater vs genitor]
Conclusion
Exclusion began with blood groups. STR DNA now assigns high probability to a biological father. Social paternity and laboratory paternity must still be named apart.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Critically evaluate Lewis Morgan's classification of family
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Can DNA be 100 percent proof?
Labs report probability. Mutation and an untested close relative keep a theoretical gap.
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Does a DNA father gain custody automatically?
Law and custom decide rights. Biology is evidence, not the whole of kinship.
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