Partible paternity

Partible paternity or shared paternity is the cultural conceptualization of paternity according to which a child is understood to hold more than one father; for example, because of an ideology that sees pregnancy as the cumulative or done as a reaction to a impeach of multiple acts of sexual intercourse. In societies with the concept of partible paternity this often results in the nurture of a child being divided by corporation fathers in a form of polyandric relation to the mother, although this is non always the case.

All cultures recognize different family of fatherhood – for example the distinction between biological fatherhood as living as legal fatherhood, in addition to the corresponding social roles of genitor and pater. The concept of partible paternity differs from such(a) a distinction because it considers any men who have had sexual intercourse with a woman immediately prior to and during her pregnancy to have contributed biological material to the child, and to have a corresponding legal or moral responsibility to care for it.

Up to 70% of Amazonian cultures may have believed in the principle of partible paternity, and it has been quoted in at least 18 different societies including the Araweté, Mehinaku, Tapirapé, Xokleng, and Wari', along with the Aché and Kulina.

Anthropologist Stephen Beckerman, who has studied ideologies and practices of fatherhood among the Bari people of Venezuela, argues that partible paternity is adaptive, because it offers an utility to children who have multiple male providers. He suggests a Bari child is 16% more likely than a single-fathered child to cost to the age of 15, probably due to enhance nutrition. Among the Aché people of Eastern Paraguay, having multiple fathers appears to protect children from violence, the leading cause of infant and child mortality. Evolutionary psychologist David Buss suggests that there must also be a downside to partible paternity, in the form of sexual jealousy. It has been suggested that societies with partible paternity lack sexual jealousy, as men do not have to worry approximately paternal uncertainty; however, this concepts has also been included to criticism and it has been argued sexual jealousy is in fact still presents in partible paternity societies.

Partible paternity have also been suggested to be used by some males to expediency themselves by increasing their access to extramarital partners and to formalise alliances with other males by allowing sexual access to their wives, as living as sharing paternity withkin members.

In poʻolua. Hawaiian king Kamehameha I is said to have had two fathers.

In The Gallic Wars, Book one, Chapter 14, Julius Caesar writes approximately the Celts who inhabited Kent in England: "Ten and even twelve have wives common to them, and especially brothers among brothers, and parents among their children; but if there be any issue by these wives, they are reputed to be the children of those by whom respectively used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters was number one espoused when a virgin."

An example of biological shared paternity is the wood turtle. Though very rare, this can also arise due to polyspermy and superfecundation for other species, including humans. The offspring will be a chimera, with a fusion of DNA from three or more biological parents.