Unit 4: Relation between Parents and Children — Paternity and Maternity; Responsibility of Parents and Children: Best Interest of Child; Custody of Child and Parental Authority; Guardianship; Curatorship; Surrogacy and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF); Court Perspective towards the Right of Child Custody
1. Paternity and Maternity
The parent-child relationship’s establishment:
- Maternity: by birth — the mother’s identity following delivery (the birth registration’s mother-entry; the unmarried mother’s right to register the child in her name — the Citizenship Act’s and Children’s Act’s protections);
- Paternity: by presumption and by proof — the presumption of legitimacy (the child born in wedlock: the husband presumed the father — the Code’s presumption with its rebuttal windows); acknowledgment (the father’s voluntary recognition — the birth-registration acknowledgment); judicial determination (the paternity suit — the DNA-and-blood evidence’s modern practice; the courts’ insistence on scientific proof in disputed paternity; the child’s legitimacy protected regardless);
- The equality note: the constitutional command of equal lineage (Article 38(1): women’s equal right to lineage) and the citizenship-through-mother guarantees (Constitutional Law-II’s Unit 2 anchors) — the old father-only descent system’s correction; adoption and assisted reproduction as the further routes (Sections 5–6).
2. Responsibility of Parents and Children: Best Interest of Child
- Parents’ responsibilities: maintenance (food, care, education, health — by means, till majority-and-beyond in the defined cases); nurture-and-protection (the Children’s Act 2075’s parental-duty catalogue); the equal parental standing (both parents — not the father’s patriarchal paramountcy); the abuse-and-neglect prohibitions (the Children’s Act’s offence provisions; the child’s removal-and-alternate-care machinery);
- Children’s responsibilities: the duty to maintain the aged-and-infirm parents (the maintenance claim of parents against children — the Code’s reciprocal duty; the social-and-legal practice of the parents’ maintenance suits);
- The best-interest principle:
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