The South African government recently ended the issuing of abridged birth certificates in favour of the unabridged certificate that contains the names and identity numbers of both the mother and father of the newborn [1].
However, the phenomenon of children growing up without knowing their biological fathers is not going to go away soon. Names of fathers for children born before March 4th 2013 may not be registered, some fathers may disappear from their children’s lives despite their names being known registered and some women choose not to register a father on the birth certificate (see [2-4]). In this article, ‘father’ refers to a biological father unless otherwise stated. There are limitations to knowing ones father (the genitor] as this status is not obviously determined by a natural process of giving birth as with the mother (the genetrix)
Some children who grew up not knowing their father seek to find them and may reclaim their paternal identity by changing their surnames as a father’s surname is considered important in many African communities [2, 6-10]. There is no cultural pureness or authenticity in the practice of surnames in sub-Saharan Africa.
However, surnames carry significance in cultural personal identity, while problems around surnames seem to create a perpetual sense of dissatisfaction and feelings of disenfranchisement among some Africans [10-12]. For children born out of wedlock, acknowledgement of paternal responsibility for the pregnancy sometimes links to the child taking on the father’s name.
Traditional rituals, such as imbeleko, are performed on the father’s side to introduce the child to their paternal
Guest on the line: Dr Mpumelelo Ncube -HoD & Senior Lecturer Dept. of Social Work University of the Free State