Sun, Aug 15, 2004 - Page 18 News List

In the middle of lovers' games

An eight-year-old child is at the center of a paternity suit, lodged by a media-savvy ex-model

By Diana Freundl  /  STAFF REPORTER

Not all of Lee's media coverage however, has been positive, reflecting a suspicion that the motives of women who sue their ex-lovers for child support can be complex.

"In Western terms, when you see this kind of relationship, you say this woman is deserted or this child is deserted, but in Taiwanese situations a lot of times it cannot so easily be called a desertion. Usually it is just as likely that a woman is using this strategy to have better control over the relationship with this man," Ho said.

"When a man cannot pledge a long term relationship, the woman has no other recourse than to have a child and say, `OK, now your child is here, part of your life is here and you're going to have to continue the relationship."

A lot of the time, Ho added, child support cases are not only a settlement for money, but rather a reluctance to let the relationship go, which in the process turns the child into a "bargaining chip."

"The women who mother these children [born out of wedlock] will have to come to some kind of realization that if, financially, the child support question is solved, then she needs to forego the relationship she might have planned with the father and get rid of bitterness," Ho said.

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