Do I have to pay child support if we are just dating and not married?
<p>Do I have to pay child support if we are just dating and not married?</p>

<p>We are not planning on having a child, but what if by some odd chance she gets pregnant?</p>

<p>Does it depend on where I live? Like Toronto?</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Do I have to pay child support if we are just dating and not married?</p>
  
  <p>We are not planning on having a child, but what if by some odd chance
  she gets pregnant?</p>
  
  <p>Does it depend on where I live? Like Toronto?</p>
</blockquote>

<p><strong>The Modern Rule In Most Developed Countries</strong></p>

<p>It does depend upon where you live. </p>

<p>No jurisdiction of which I am aware has ever distinguished between a planned child and an unplanned pregnancy in making a child support award.</p>

<p>The vast majority of countries that have a category of obligation called "child support" apply it without regard to whether the parents are married. This would include all jurisdictions in Canada and the United States. </p>

<p>But, in those jurisdictions, liability for child support in the case of an unmarried couple requires a mother seeking child support from a father, to establish the father's paternity by any of a variety of means, within the time allowed by law. </p>

<p>Given the availability of cheap and highly reliable DNA tests to establish paternity, this step is now almost trivial and often waived by fathers who simply admit paternity instead when paternity seems clear. In contrast, paternity is presumed rather than something that has to be proved in cases involving a married couple.</p>

<p>There is an exception to this general rule in most jurisdictions that have child support at all. This is because the husband of a married woman who has a child is presumed to be the father. Therefore, a man who is the biological father of the married woman's child is only obligated to pay child support if the father's paternity is established within the time allowed by law by the husband, the mother of the child, or a third-party on behalf of the child with standing to do so.</p>

<p>Also, in most jurisdictions that have a concept of child support payments, a termination of parental rights (generally for abuse or neglect, but also in connection with a legal adoption by someone else) also terminates obligations to pay child support payments that arise after parental rights are terminated, although this rule is not universal. Generally that exception would not apply in the fact pattern that you describe.</p>

<p><strong>Historical and Comparative Context</strong></p>

<p>Historically, the concept of child support was unknown, illegitimate children and their mothers had no rights with respect to their fathers (and fathers had no rights with respect to their illegitimate children in most circumstances), and only married people were entitled to post-divorce support from an ex-spouse that was known as alimony and alimony served to provide support to both the ex-spouse and their children.</p>

<p>The harshness of this historical rule was mitigated somewhat by the concept of common law marriage that had the practical effect of declaring an unmarried man who caused an unmarried woman to become pregnant to be declared husband and wife despite not having actually having gone through a marriage ceremony in many cases. </p>

<p>At that time, there was an incentive for the man to re-characterize the nature of the relationship retroactively, because if the woman was not a prostitute, it would often be a crime or tort for the man to have had sex with the unmarried woman, enforceable by the state or by her father or guardian. But, if the couple were deemed to have been common law married, then all of these sanctions could be avoided. </p>

<p>At this time, in areas where the state was not powerful enough to enforce these kinds of sanctions for premarital sex giving rise to a pregnancy, social pressure and sometimes even a literal "shotgun" marriage would be used to force the father to marry to mother.</p>

<p>Prior to the 19th century in Western predominantly Christian countries, the only way to get a divorce was by special legislation in which the legislature passed a law specifically ending a particular couple's marriage. In the 19th century, bit by bit, Western countries started to allow judicially decreed divorces under a general statute on a proof of fault basis, with alimony awarded to the not at fault spouse under a breach of contract damages styled analysis that did not involve a separate child support component.</p>

<p>Bit by bit in various Western jurisdictions during the 20th century, child support began to be recognized as a separate obligation from alimony and property division in a divorce, as partnership theories of family law, and parent-child relationship based theories of family law, began to replace the contract based theories of family law in earlier divorce actions. Non-marital relationship entitlements to child support also arose around the same time. Many U.S. states have both civil and criminal penalties for failing to provide financial support to your child.</p>

<p>Japan only recognized child support as a separate type of relief in family law in the late 20th century (multiple decades after World War II), and has never had post-dissolution of marriage alimony after a divorce, although it has had temporary support not clearly distinguished between alimony and child support, during the pendency of divorce proceedings (which tend to be much shorter than in the U.S. and Canada). The primary relief to a spouse upon a divorce in Japan historically was property division and complete allocation of each child to one parent or the other, with no child support or alimony post-decree, until these late 20th century reforms allowing for limited child support payments (which are still rarely actually received even when ordered by a court) were adopted.</p>

<p>The analysis in countries where the parents of the child are subject to Islamic rules of family law are beyond my competence, but quite different. Unlike Western jurisdictions, Islam has recognized non-legislative divorce since its inception in the early 600s CE as did prior pagan communities in places where Islam arose.</p>

<p>One of the main reasons that child support and alimony were rare or non-existent at the time in almost all countries was that the legal systems and economic systems in existence at the time made intangible monetary obligations to pay child support in regular installments over a long period of time, and to enforce custody arrangements, was effectively impossible for former spouses to enforce in all but a very small fraction of cases.</p>

<h2>You pay for your children</h2>

<p>Your relationship with the other parent is irrelevant.</p>

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