Well, in N's case, the reality turned out to be much more interesting, if less illustrious, than the myth. In fact, I'll bet we all have 'interesting' family background stuff that has been lost in the mists of time because it was just a bit too interesting to tell the children.
I've known, personally, two women (and a possible third, but the two are definite) of whom one child each was not the biological child of the husband, and so was only a half-sibling of his (boys in both cases) brother. If I know 2 or 2+ for sure, there must really a lot out there. So just looking at that one factor, somebody unknown to the rest of the family being the actual father, there are a lot of myths being believed.
Not that it matters, really. It's all just stories, more or less accurate, mostly less.Though the medical background thing could make accurate paternity important.
One of the fathers definitely knew in those cases (the actual father was his best friend, who was a very different physical type from him, and the boy looked just like his best friend) but loved the boy and treated him exactly as though he were his own son. The same is true about the second 'father,' raised the son lovingly; except in this case, no one was sure what he knew. |
