In a high-profile divorce case that sparked heated debates in China, a man divorced his wife of 16 years after learning that none of the three children she birthed during their marriage were his.

In December 2007, Chen Zhixian married Yu Hua, a woman eight years his junior, soon after meeting her for the first time. She seemed like a simple, down-to-earth woman, and his parents had long been pressuring him to settle down, so he never really took the time to know her. Soon after tying the knot, Yu Hua informed Chen that she was pregnant, and he was so overwhelmed by the news that he was going to be a father, that he never realized his wife had to have already been pregnant when they met to have a child when she did. Yu gave birth to the couple’s first daughter, and her husband became a long-distance freight driver who was away for most of the year, only coming home, in Dexing, Jianxi Province, for short periods of time.

Read More »

A Brazilian judge ordered a pair of male identical twins to pay child support to a child whose paternity could not be determined after they both refused to assume responsibility and a DNA test proved inconclusive because of their genetic similarity.

Valeria, the mother of the child, originally filed a lawsuit for recognition of paternity against just one of the two twins, Fernando, with whom she believes she had a short romantic relationship with. He underwent a DNA test which showed that there was a 99.9% probability that he was the father of the child. However, after seeing the result, Fernando continued to deny that he had fathered the girl, claiming instead that it had been his identical twin brother, Fabricio. The man’s twin was also ordered to take the DNA test, which yielded the same result as Fernando’s, because the two have virtually the same genetic code. Left with no option, the judge ordered both of them to pay child support to the same child.

Read More »