Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Difference between revisions

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* In [[Andre Norton]]'s ''[[Witch World|The Jargoon Pard]]'', Kethan is his uncle's heir because as his sister's son, he is his most reliable kin.

* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''Beyond Thirty'', the British Isles have "retrogressed" -- there are tribes that did not have a word for father, and other tribes where they are aware of fatherhood, but practice matrilineality because of this trope. The heroine tells the hero not who her father is, but whom her mother once told her was her father.

{{quote| ''It appears that the line of descent is through the women. A man is merely head of his wife's family--that is all. If she chances to be the oldest female member of the "royal" house, he is king. Very naively the girl explained that there was seldom any doubt as to whom a child's mother was.''}}

{{quote|''It appears that the line of descent is through the women. A man is merely head of his wife's family--that is all. If she chances to be the oldest female member of the "royal" house, he is king. Very naively the girl explained that there was seldom any doubt as to whom a child's mother was.''}}

* Inverted in ''[[Wicked (novel)|Wicked]]'', in which Elphaba isn't sure if Liir is her son or not, because she'd been unconscious at the time he was born and no one would tell her if she'd given birth during that time or not.

** Although [[Played Straight]] with her sister Nessarose, who her father suspects is not his. {{spoiler|Turns out it's true about Elphaba, too, with a different father than her sister, though}}.

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** In ''[[The Winter's Tale|The Winters Tale]]'', Leontes doubts that he is the father of either Mamillus or Perdita.

** In ''[[The Tempest]]'', Prospero tweaks the edge of this trope, explaining the past to Miranda:

{{quote| '''Propsero''': ''Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and~~<br />~~

{{quote|'''Propsero''': ''Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and

She said thou wast my daughter;'' }}

** In ''[[Titus Andronicus (theatre)|Titus Andronicus]]'', he opts for the [[Chocolate Baby]] solution -- the child is obviously Aaron's.