The first is that the claim must not be demonstrably false. For example, if a ten-year-old comes and says, “The child is mine,” this is impossible. Or if a twenty-year-old comes while the foundling is twelve years old, this is impossible and ordinarily inconceivable. If the claim cannot possibly be true, it is not accepted.

The second is that no one else contests his claim. If two people claim him, this will be discussed in the author’s words to come.

His statement, “or a married woman”: if a married woman claims that the child is hers, her claim is accepted. Even if her husband denies it and says, “This is not my child,” the child is ascribed to the woman but not to the husband. This is because it is possible that the child came to her before she married this man, or that she had intercourse by mistake or through adultery, and her husband does not wish to acknowledge the child as his own. If she is unmarried, then the child is ascribed to her all the more readily. For if the claim of a married woman that he is her child is accepted, then the case of a woman without a husband is even more deserving of acceptance—unless the facts prove her false, such as if she is a virgin and says, “This child is mine”; then her claim is not accepted.

The scholars differed regarding this issue—that is, when a woman claims the child—into three views:

The first is that the child is never ascribed to her, because a woman does not confer lineage. People are ascribed to their fathers, so there is no benefit in her acknowledging him as her child.

The second is that the child is ascribed to her in all cases—and this is the view adopted by the author—whether she is married or unmarried; he is her child. Then, if her husband acknowledges him, he is also his child; otherwise, he belongs to her alone. They said: although a person is not ascribed to his mother, she nevertheless benefits from this, since he becomes her child: he inherits from her, and she inherits from him,