I seldom have read an article I agree with more than this one! As a man of 60 I can vividly remember when hymen worship was abroad in this land. In some places, including that part of the country that unfortunately lost the Civil War and stayed in the Union, it still is.

The writer would no doubt call hymen worship a patriarchcal attitude, and of course it is. It has at least two bases. The irrational part is the deep seated, and largely unconscious, fear men have of the sexuality of women and of its implications concerning the possibility of female fidelity. The rational, but now outdated, part was the fact that, before DNA tests were developed, you (Mr. Patriarch) could easily end up with a little cuckoo in your extended nest if a marriage of one of the males of the Family was not to a virgin.

All outdated, or on the verge of being, depending on the level of attitudinal and technological advancement of the country in question. How long will it take to go away? Wait and see.

Hint: You'll need two, or twenty, lifetimes to see this nonsense go away.

You are a man of 60 but you go by the name Diana Satyr?

How is it irrational for men to be concerned about the fidelity of their partners and paternity of "their" children? The fact is women cheat, just as men do. A woman can cheat with all the men she wants and not worry that she is going to have another woman's baby. That same act of infidelity MAY have serious consequences regarding the paternity of her children, however. It is the irrational man who does not consider these facts, not the rational one.

Second question: Exactly when is the modern man supposed to avail himself of DNA/paternity testing? When his wife tells him she is pregnant? Following the delivery? Before he signs the birth certificate? I can't imagine any situation in which a man might tell his pregnant wife that he wants a paternity test done, without her flying through the roof. Such a request implies doubts on the man's part. No, the modern Western woman wants her husband to simply trust her. But, on what basis? Studies on infidelity put the rates at 30% to 60% for women. Traditionally the basis of the man's trust was the fact that his bride was a virgin, thus supposedly demonstrating an adherence to strict sexual morality. The modern man thus finds himself in a can't win situation. He is labeled a misogynist if he insists that his bride be a virgin, and a misogynist if he accepts marrying a nonvirgin, but insists on paternity testing.

I don't understand why men (and people in general) make such a big deal out of raising kids that aren't theirs biologically. I'm curious.. If there were no laws that favored the rights of biological parents over others, would raising someone else's child still be an issue for you?

Cerebus - How does having sex before marriage indicate that the woman will have affairs after? The logic doesn't follow. Besides, if what you're saying is true, then women have the same right to be assured that their husbands will be faithful too in their marriage, or else they will risk contracting STDs or having the family unit compromised by the husband producing children outside of their family - thus draining resources vital to the health of the woman's family unit.

And yet I can hear the argument rearing its head already: there's no biological basis to see if a man has lost his virginity. Ahh, yet I'm sure with the same wonderful modern technology that allows for us to produce paternity tests, we can devise a device to see if a man has been sharing his peeper with the ladies before marriage.

Besides, hymens are a horrible way of telling if a woman is a virgin or not. The absence of one at the VERY MOST means that one of the many possible reasons for its loss might have been due to sexual intercourse. Other very plausible (even more possible) reasons could include: tampons, natural tear from gymnastics, swimming, dancing, karate, horse back riding, doing the splits, or a million other things. Hell, I'm a virgin and don't have a hymen. And I have no clue where it went.

Hint: Note the mythological contradiction.

A lot of men do DNA test on babies when they're born. They're actually selling them (tests not babies) at some drug stores now due to their popularity. If the child isn't theirs' they can decide whether or not to contest paternity.

Recently some cases have ruled that there's a window to contest paternity (i.e. the father can't divorce the woman and deny his claims of paternity when the child is 10); this is a hot issue right now.