Relationships can be messy. Messy going in and messy going out.

Sometimes children get caught up in the mess, but generally policy makers and the courts try to shield them from any fallout in relationship breakdown by putting their interests first. This inevitably means moving away from the courts.

However, in legislative slut-shaming not seen since Hester Prynne was required to take to the stocks with the scarlet letter 'A' emblazoned on her dress (Prynne was the protagonist in Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of an adulterous relationship leading to an illegitimate child), this week the German Justice Minster sought cabinet approval for a bill that would force women to divulge past sexual partners.

Not all of them, which is a small mercy, just those who she slept with around the time she conceived. This request can be made by a man who is paying child support — and clearly uncertain about his need to do so.

Cuckoo Kids' Law to protect 'sham fathers'

Referred to by German press as the 'Cuckoo Kids' law', it is designed to protect men who have discovered themselves not to be the biological father of a child and to allow them to reclaim child maintenance for up to two years.

Its purpose, according to Justice Minister Heiko Maas is "to offer more legal protection for 'sham fathers' to seek recourse".

The bill was drafted after a 2015 case in which the country's highest court called on the Government to strengthen these men's rights.

Exactly how many children grow up believing the wrong man is their biological father is difficult to determine, but a 2005 review of studies found the rate was about 4 per cent, or roughly 1 in 25 children.

It's hard to see how the new law doesn't put a woman and her child on the scaffolds, says Jo Fox. ( Pexels.com )

As ever, when governments peer into bedrooms, it all seems so simple on paper. Man A seeks redress from Man B and everyone carries on as they were. But relationships are complicated.

The past is a disputed event where motivations, conversations and even the status of a relationship are muddied.

In a very public example of the twists and turns of such relationships, in late 2004 Tony Abbott was reunited with his 27-year-old son, who was put up for adoption after his birth, only to discover weeks later through DNA testing they were not related.

The proposed bill appears silent on what happens if the woman refuses to divulge — or simply doesn't know — who the father is.

And while Hester Prynne refused to divulge the father to the Puritan society she lived in to protect him, in these times of digital hook-ups and later partnerships, not everyone keeps a black book of their sexual partners (nor probably ever did).

Women will wear the effects

The biggest problem is the double standard that accompanies such demands.

Sexual profligacy is a trait that labels a woman a tart but celebrates the potency of a man. It's hard to see how the hand of the courts and government can make a potentially acrimonious situation better for anyone by requiring such a list, long or short.

Like Hester Prynne, it's improbable to think that it won't be the woman and child who wear the effects.

From cruel schoolyard taunts to a child about his mother, to the possible threat of abuse a mother might be exposed to if her past is revealed in such a heated situation (from either male partner), it is not hard to imagine how the shock waves of a law like this may affect lives for the worse.

And if these relationships have been violent, abusive or involved drug and alcohol misuse, then the potential is far worse.

Raking up the past

Earlier this year, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby discovered he was not the son of Gavin Welby, but Sir Anthony Montague, his mother's colleague in the office of Winston Churchill. (They had an alcohol-fuelled one-night stand shortly before her marriage.)

His mother also did not know about the Archbishop's parentage until the test and said it came as an unbelievable shock. But Archbishop Welby said his experience was "typical of many people".

"To find that one's father is other than imagined is not unusual," he said. "To be the child of families with great difficulties in relationships, with substance abuse or other matters, is far too normal … I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes."

Religious belief aside, his response is one of grace and dignity in the face of a very public revelation. But it is also the response of a mature man not in the middle of a family dispute.

Time, experience and the passing of both fathers has meant he can reflect on what this means for him. And yet the German bill would mean the past is raked up when children are young, family breakdown is current and tempers are hot. The very fact they are being resolved in court suggests as much.

Before it even makes it to Cabinet, the bill is likely to spark heated debate in Germany, where privacy is so highly protected that media cannot name criminals without their permission.

Making it even more controversial is the fact that in April, the highest court in Germany ruled men could not be forced to take paternity tests against their will.

But one thing is clear: in the interests of clawing back up to two years' child maintenance, it constitutes a serious threat to a woman and child's right to privacy, especially when the ability to test parentage via DNA test already exists.

No-one wants to be lied to about their status as a parent or taken for a financial ride, but it's hard to see how a court-required, sexual witch-hunt doesn't put a woman and her child on the scaffolds, as Hester was.

Jo Fox is a former ALP political advisor, including on the status of women.