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By contrast, here is a quotation from a report of the French Senate on the subject, which may not be readily available in English: "Preserving the presumption " is est pater quem nuptiae demonstrant ", [Marriage designates the father]adopted in all European legislation as Ms. Frédérique Granet-Lambrechts, professor at the Robert Schuman University of Strasbourg, told your reporter, Article 312 of Civil Code provides that a child conceived or born during the marriage has the husband for its father. The presumption of paternity of the husband rests on the obligation of fidelity between spouses and reflects the commitment made by the husband during the celebration of marriage, to raise the couple's children. The report presenting the order to the President of the Republic rightly points out that " it is, in the words of Dean Carbonnier, the ‘heart of marriage,’ and cannot be questioned without losing for this institution its meaning and value." It is perhaps worth noting that the French courts' recent rejection of Same-Sex Marriage was largely based on Carbonnier's analysis that (1) Mandatory civil marriage, makes the institution a pillar of the secular Republic, standing clear of the religious sacrament (2) The institution of republican marriage is inconceivable, absent the idea of filiation, enshrined, not in Church dogma, but in the Civil Code (3) The sex difference is central to filiation. - Michael Paterson-Seymour