DOUBTING fathers are flocking to online 'peace of mind' paternity tests to find out whether they've been cuckolded.

Up to four in 10 of these suspicious minds find out they are not the father. Meanwhile, one expert blames the ‘Jerry Springer’ influence for exaggerating how often women give birth to another man’s child.

Australia’s largest paternity test provider, Genetic Technologies, now does around 10,000 DNA tests a year, up from between 7,000 and 8,000 five years ago.

Vice President of sales and marketing Greg McPherson says the trend is towards ‘peace of mind’ tests – done using a quick cheek swab from man and child – rather than the more thorough tests that are legally admissible.

Between three and four in 10 tests show the man is not the father, he said. Other groups report rates of about one in four, while the rate in the general community is believed to be closer to 1 per cent.

“People are becoming more aware of the fact that they can do these tests and because of the internet you’ve got a lot more permission to be hidden,” Mr McPherson said.

“People are curious and while that’s always been the case – it’s now easier to be curious.”

Cheek swabs can be sent directly to the company, meaning often the mother may not be aware the test is being done. If results show that the man is not the father, he then needs a proper test done for any Family Court proceedings.

There is plenty of controversy around paternity tests, with unreliable statistics complicating the story. Prenatal paternity tests are also available, raising concerns that women might terminate a pregnancy if the baby has the ‘wrong’ father.

But Michael Gilding, Professor of Sociology at Swinburne’s Institute for Social Research, says ‘misattributed paternity’ is not the social problem it’s made out to be.

He says calls last year by the Men’s Rights Agency to make paternity tests mandatory was “like using a jackhammer to kill a mosquito”, because vested interests have wildly exaggerated the issue.

He says father’s rights groups, the DNA industry and some academics inflate the figures, but really the rate of women giving birth to another man’s baby is probably around 1 or 2 per cent.

“When it’s discovered there’s a lot of humiliation and personal distress, but having said all of that the degree to which it’s a social issue is overstated,” he said.

Meanwhile, a study out today found religious strictures can help prevent cuckolding. Authors studied an African region where people were a mix of Christians, Muslims, and followers of the local Dogon religion.

The Dogon ‘menstrual huts’, where women are kept for five nights a month were an effective way to reduce cuckolding because they exposed a woman’s fertility cycle to the entire community.

The US authors of the study, published in today’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences , said such measures and other religious factors such as social control and the fear of God helped ensure men knew children were their own. They said this aim was common to all world religions:

“Although the world religions do not have menstrual huts, they do share common tenets that may foster cuckoldry avoidance.”

Read more about menstrual huts and cuckolding in today’s Punch.