--------------

By Prof. Moses Muhumuza

In the last two weeks the mainstream media and the social media in Uganda have been awash with news, public perspectives and opinions on the craze of DNA testing that men are undertaking to determine the paternity of “their” children. 

This has resulted in various comments from men to women using the phase “fear women”. 

On the other had women have generally been claiming that it is not necessary for men to pursue DNA tests. 

Children rights activists are discouraging men from conducting DNA test so as to protect the rights of innocent children whose paternity suits turns out negative. 

Other people have proposed enactment of laws to guide DNA testing in Uganda. 

The Deputy Speaker of Parliament of Uganda has asked government to regulate DNA paternity laboratories in the country and initiate counselling services for men who have fallen victim.

In all these views and suggestions, there is one thing that the public has not given attention to. This is the conflict of nature and culture that dictate family affairs, the sexual behaviors of men and women and how they relate with children. 

We need to first understand this conflict so that we can make informed opinions about the current craze of DNA testing in Uganda.

In this short article, I endeavor to show that understanding the conflict between nature and culture will take us to the root necessary to resolve any issues associated with DNA testing. 

By nature, I mean the natural laws and ecological principles that govern us and the way we live and relate on this planet earth that we all call home. 

By culture I mean values, norms and traditions engrained within African traditional and modern society, and the western religion that influence our lifestyle in the current modern milieu. 

Firstly, there is Conflict in economic provision. Currently, culture and society expect men to provide economically to the household. To economically support the family, wife and children. 

A husband who does not fulfil this responsibility is considered a failure. Therefore, a man has to struggle and meet the household needs in order to prove that he is not a failure. 

However, nature demands something else and that is where the conflict is between culture and nature. 

In nature the females are supposed to take care of the children, ensure the welfare of the family and the survival of the household. The females are physiologically and emotionally designed by nature to take care of the young. 

In nature, males that exclusively provide paternal care are rare, only reported in animals such as seahorses, sunfish, jaw fish and partial paternal care in coaches. 

Also, in most species of bird, the female alone builds the nest. This behavior is seen in Chimpanzees where the females make their own nests. 

This is also exhibited in lions where lionesses ready to give birth, leave their family pride to find a private Den in the shelter of bushes, or even a cave. 

These are indicative example to show that the roles bestowed on men to provide for the family are cultural and not natural as some people think.

Therefore, the trait of dependence on the female counterpart still lurks in the genetic code and minds of many men and that is why when they get negative DNA results of their supposed children that they have been forced to take care of economically by culture, they get un-easy, irritated and those with weak souls commit suicide. 

Secondly there is conflict in the choice of a partner. Culturally, it is designed that a man chooses a partner or a wife to marry. 

This is evidenced by various cultural arrangements where a man goes to the wife’s home to announce his intention to marry and to request to be allowed to pay bride price. 

This implies that the man has found a “treasure” and that he is ready to pay for and take. 

That is why in some societies even in the present day, women are regarded as part of a man’s property. Men generally have a superior mentality, subtle but still prevalent in both educated and uneducated.

Metaphorically speaking, to the man, the woman is a bike and him alone has the right to enjoy ride. However, nature demands otherwise and this is another source of conflict between culture and nature. 

In nature, the female chooses the male, the woman is supposed to choose the man with whom to partner. 

The choice of the woman naturally is supposed to be influenced by the emotional and aesthetic (with elaborate ornamentation and are more colorful) attributes rather than the economic status of the man.

For example, at the Kobs mating ground in Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) in Uganda, the females determine the males to mate with. It is very common in most species for females to be the choosier when picking a mate than males. 

Actually, unlike what many men think, women have a right to their bike and determining who enjoys the ride and when. However, a conflict occurs when a woman is faced with a choice between a man with aesthetic attributes and one of economic status. 

The women would want both and that is why they will choose one with economic status and secretly engage with one with aesthetic attributes and vice versa. 

Rarely can a woman find a man with both aesthetic attributes to her taste and is economically well-off. 

For this reason, a woman will have sex for example with a shamba boy who is weak economically but with certain aesthetic attributes hence resulting in a child with DNA that is negative to that of the husband. 

The woman will keep with the husband simply for the sake of economic provision as earlier pointed out.

Thirdly, there is conflict of men’s unfaithful behaviour. The word faithfulness is cultural and not drawn from nature. Many families break because a man has been “unfaithful” to the wife by having sexual relations with other women and sometimes having children with those women.

Breaking a family on such grounds never used to be common in the African traditional setting and even currently it is not ground for formal divorce for customary marriages. Monogamous marriages have been perpetuated by Christian religious doctrines and this causes conflict with nature.

The wedding under monogamous marriage is meant to be a lock and that is why when a child is born outside marriage is said to be born out of wedlock. Derogatory phrases such as Bastard or Illegitimate are used to refer to such a child.

This monogamous lock is not natural and that is why many people especially men are struggling to keep in there. By nature contrary to what may women believe, males are polygamous.

The male resource (sperm) is readily available and cheaper than the female resource (Ovum) that is scarce and comes only once a month. Once fertilized, the female resource will be out of stock for not less than 9 months but that of the male will be available perpetually.

Do not confuse this by arguing that the female is still available for sex even when she is pregnant. Remember, also sex for pleasure is an outlier in nature as it is exhibited by just a handful of animals.

Sex is meant generally for reproduction not for pleasure as an end in itself. Women attain menopause in mid age (45-50 years) but physiologically, males never attain menopause which makes the female resource even less readily and perpetually available.

The polygamous nature of men is shared with other wildlife animals where only less than 3% of animals in the animal kingdom pair for life. Such animals include the Grey crown crane (which commonly is known as the Crested crane), and the Fish eagle to mention but a few.

These have courtship rituals within them triggered by their genetical code to pair for life. A few other animals that are often considered monogamous only last in the relationship one mating season.

The genetic code that fixes men to monogamous marriages or triggers them to pair for life does not exist.

To the contrary, men regardless of social status, political power, and level of education from presidents to Peasants, Princes to Paupers, Bishops to Beggars are predisposed to polygamy.

Just like other animals domestic and wild, to create a sustainable family the ratio of Male to Female should be very low (i.e more reproducing females for every one male). For example, 7 Hens to 1 Cock, 25 cows to 1 Bull, the same applies to goats, sheep, Cane rats and a variety of domestic and wild animals. A higher number of males in any situation naturally leads to male-male aggression.

Therefore, this should be brought to the understanding of all everyone but especially women. Unfortunately, women have fallen victim to all sorts of trickery using herbal remedies to control the polygamous nature of men.

Their efforts have often been futile and detrimental to the welfare of their homes. Some of the problems that men face as a result of low “manpower” (impotence) have been attributed to the herbs that women use in attempt to bring men to order. Some women in attempt to revenge engage in polyandrous relationships hence producing a child that will have a negative DNA from the wife’s husband.

Fourthly, there is conflict in cultural expectations to have a child. Culturally, it is expected that any man and any woman should have at least a child. 

If a woman or man died without a child would be considered a curse and certain rituals such as taking the body for burial through the back door were performed. 

Therefore, at all cost, men and women aim at pursuing and fulfilling the cultural expectation of bearing children. 

In cases where a woman would have difficulties to have a biological child, provisions were put in place to ensure that a man has a child either with a relative of the wife or with a slave as was common in the bible (read Genesis 16:2) or a daughter with their own father (read Genesis 19:30).

Also, culture expected that the brother of a deceased man can have sexual intercourse with a wife of the decease brother to have children for him. 

Failure to do so would even result into punishment by death (read Genesis 38:8). The need to have a child is aligned with nature as advanced in Charles Dawrmin’s survival for the fittest in his evolutionary theory. To Darwin survival means reproduction. 

Despite this, there are cases of infertility in men and infertility in women that prevents them to have children.

In situations where there is infertility in female, there are provisions for males to culturally find an alternative as earlier pointed out but such alternatives unfortunately do not exist for females. 

So, when the male is infertile, the women will be prompted to secretly have a child from another man and pretend that the child belongs to the husband. 

Another problem arises from the expectation of culture that the child belongs to a man and not the woman. This is contradictory in nature, with exception of just a few animals, the children below to the female. Actually, males vehemently reject young ones that are not theirs. 

In lions for example, when an old lion is chased from a Den, the young ones (Cubs) that are found there are killed by the new lion that is taking over the Den for two reason. 

One reason is to enable the female (lioness) to quickly go into estrous and have Cubs fathered by the new lion and the second reason is to reduce competition for food in preparation for the new Cubs. This trait is shared among men as well. 

A man considers the welfare of his own biological child above that of a child sired in his wife by another man. That trait is responsible for the current anxiety in men who take such children for DNA and the paternity suit results are found negative.  

 Lastly, there is a conflict of roles and responsibility. In the traditional African setting there was social order, there were roles of a husband, roles of a wife, roles of aunties, uncles, children and grandparents. 

This system mimicked nature such as the social order seen in Lions, in Mongoose and in Bees to mention but a few. 

In Bees for example, the Queen, the Drones, and the Workers naturally fulfil their specific roles diligently, faithfully and without interference in each other’s roles. 

This system keeps peace and was naturally intended to reduce or avoid conflict. This is the system that culture in our African traditional setting followed and has been adopted in businesses, organizations and corporations in modern times. 

However, when it comes to a family, there is a conflict, the women now play the social roles of men, and children sometimes play the roles of parents or unties and uncles, the man sometimes play no role and this results into confusion at the family level. 

Despite physiological masculine provisions that make a man physically stronger and prepared for hard work and the biblical provisions that a man will rule over the woman (read Genesis 3:16) the women have taken on hard work and also taken over the leaderships of homes and rule over men.

Unlike in the past where the men went out to work and would take time to return home, the women kept homes. 

In some cases, such women had children with close relatives of the husband and in that case such children were still considered as the husband’s children as they were genetically related to the husband. 

But in the current situation where women are also working, some of them away from home, it predisposes them to have children sired by men totally unrelated to their husbands and hence negative DNA results. 

I now turn to the way forward; it is important to recognize these conflicts between nature and culture perpetuate conflicts in families and between man and wife and hence account for the current situation where it has been reported that 80% of the DNA results from the government analytical lab in Uganda are negative. 

Any guidelines, policies, Acts and laws that may be developed in response to the craze of DNA testing in Uganda should put these points of conflict between nature and culture into consideration. We should remember that the supreme law is the law of nature. 

For example, there cannot be a law that you should eat, naturally the body will demand for food and for you to eat and if you do not abide by the natural demand, you will severely be punished. Any subsidiary laws that will be created to counter nature are simply flaunt. 

The second way forward is how to handle the children who are found negative after the DNA test. 

The victim children unfortunately are innocent and need to be protected. My sentimental proposal is that where a child is born and the DNA has not been taken at birth and within 8 years, that child should not be claimed by any other person different from the one he/she grew regarding as the father. 

This is because, formative years are periods of early childhood between 0-8 years of a child's life and by that time will have formed social and emotion bonds with the purported father. 

If there are circumstances that the child is claimed by the biological father before the age of 8, then there should be a systematic formula to calculate the compensation that the man that raised the child as the father is given. 

There are things that are better left unknown. To know the truth from DNA results is only as good in relation to how the consequences from that truth are handled. 

The writer is a university Professor based at Mountains of the Moon University.

Is a Researcher, Scientist, Environmentalist and Life skills Educator