presumption of paternity , także: presumption of fatherhood

Some jurisdictions also hold that a presumption of paternity arises when a father accepts a child into his home, or publicly represents that he is the child's father.

Presumption of paternity in common law is the legal determination that a man is "presumed to be" a child's biological father without additional supportive evidence, usually as a result of marriage.

The presumption of legitimacy or presumption of paternity, which presumes that a husband is the biological father of a child born to his wife during the marriage, or within nine months after the marriage is ended by death, legal separation, or divorce.

In English common law, Justice Edward Coke in 1626 promulgated the "Four Seas Rule" (extra quatuor maria) asserting that, absent impossibility of the father being fertile, there was a presumption of paternity that a married woman's child was her husband's child.