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Since time immemorial, there have been laws governing and securing men's rights over their children. Assumptions of female custody are an extremely modern development. For most of the world, across most of recorded history, where laws have existed, they have protected men's rights to the furtherance of their genes. These have in many cases stretched as far as the right to kill off any babies that weren't his (rights to 'expose' a baby), thereby showing that what is important, deep down is the 'replicate me' programme we're all born with. Males, as the physically dominant sex have always sought to control that programme. As civilization became more advanced, this morphed into control of land and property and maintenance of the family name and estate...but at its core it is what it always was. It is the reason society shames the promiscuous woman.
This is no different. This is no different to any of the myriad other ways men have used patriarchal societal systems to exert their control over the 'replicate me' programme and the women who incubate their genetic future.
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