According to Chapter 5 in your text, courts and legislatures have historically relied on different "presumptions" when forced to decide child custody and access issues for families separated by divorce.

The author claims they have done this to lend stability to societal "family" preservation, sometimes at the cost of parental rights or relationships, or even a cost on the involved children.

Please choose one historical presumption and analyze it.

First, describe the presumption.

Second, defend its underlying objective, use and subsequent impact (real or potential) on families and our communities. You can choose from paternal/maternal/primary caretaker/natural parent/joint legal and physical presumptions.

Finally, apply the presumption to the following scenario:

Susan and John had decided to marry after Susan became pregnant- they had been seriously "dating" for about 8 months, and had worked closely together for three years before dating. They told John's parents and started to plan a wedding, and all seemed right in the world, until Susan told John she had had a miscarriage. Susan quit her job, moved in with her sister, who she had called to take her to the hospital, and abruptly cut off all communication with John and/or his family. John pressed Susan's sister and mother as to her well-being, and did manage one or two awkward phone conversations with Susan, and then resigned himself to the situation.

About a year later, some friends of John found Susan's Facebook page and saw she had married her old "boyfriend" (David) from high school and they had a new baby. The baby appeared to be about two months old and looked remarkably like John. They looked a little further into Susan's online photo album, and decided the timing of the baby's birth and uncanny likeness to John had to be more than a coincidence. So they showed John what they had found. And John called Susan. And then John requested a paternity test be done.

The paternity test revealed John was this baby's father, not David. Turns out Susan had somehow convinced David the baby was his, despite his prior vasectomy. It also came out that Susan had been seeing David while she was also seeing John. So she told David it was his baby and married him instead of John, telling John she had had a miscarriage. She kept her secret as to the birth of the baby away from John, deliberately cutting him out of her life, and lied to her now husband about her fidelity to him. Eventually she told David her relationship with John was nothing more than a "one night's stand" to explain away his concerns. She denied one set of grandparents and a family the knowledge and sharing in that baby's birth, and convinced another family that this was their biological off-spring. It was all lies, and Susan knew it the entire time. In fact, one of Susan's family members suggested she manipulated the whole thing to get David back, as he was recently divorced with two children of his own, and knew he desperately wanted another child, as his ex-wife had full custody of their children.

So now John, who is a responsible individual and wanted to do what was "right", is going to court to work out parenting of the newly discovered baby. Obviously Susan wants everything to stay as it is, without interference from John. David wants the baby too, and is willing to stay married to Susan, even asking about adopting the baby. The baby is now about 3 months old.

You are the judge and this crew appears before you with their lawyers- they tell the tale you just read. Using the presumption you previously chose, explain the judgment you will render as to custody and access, support, visitation and any other aspect of family life you think is relevant.