Once this is determined the father can seek custody, has a right to visitation if he does not get custody, and sometimes can get the child's last name changed to his own last name. He will also be required to pay child support based on his income (or potential income if he decides not to work). Under Tennessee law the father has an equal right to be the custodial parent, and if the father seeks custody, the court will then look to decide which placement would be in the best interests of the child — custody with the mother or with the father. Realistically, unless there are serious problems with the mother, the father will have problems getting custody, and the longer the father waits to seek custody, the greater those problems are.
In the case of a biological father whose child is born to a woman married to another man at the time is in a different situation, however. He may end up with no rights at all to having any contact with the child, or any legal recognition of the biological reality that he fathered the child.
Years ago when this happened the biological father generally faded into the woodwork and the child was treated in all respects as if his mother's husband were his father. Courts in several states even issued decisions that it made no difference whether the husband had been away at sea for two years before the child's birth and there was literally no possibility whatsoever that the husband could be the father, it made no difference and the husband was the father if he and the mother were married at the time of conception and at the time of birth.
It was a simple rule intended to eliminate conflict, preserve families, and avoid the difficult decisions courts could face in determining paternity in a age before good scientific evidence.
But now DNA testing can determine with virtual absolute certainty which of two or even of three or four men is the actual, biological father of a child.
And under Tennessee law, the biological father can go to court to get a court order determining him to be the father, and granting him visitation rights, or allowing him to seek custody... even if doing so will irreparably disrupt the home where the child is living with the biological mother and her husband. TCA 36-2-305.
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