The Mother Is Going To Have Custody Without an Actual Custody Order
Video Transcribed: Who has custody when there’s no custody? Hi, my name is Ryan Cannonie. I’m an attorney in Tahlequah. One thing that comes up occasionally is I’ll have either a father or a mother call and say, “Hey, we weren’t married, but we have a child together. What are my rights?” Well under Oklahoma law, if you are an unmarried couple, and assuming the father is presumed to be the father, there’s not a question of paternity there, even in those situations, I guess I should say, if you’re unmarried, the mother is presumed to have custody.
Now the common sense logic of this is that we generally know who the mother of a child is. That’s usually not up for debate. So, since we know who the mother generally is, the general standard practice on that is that the mother is going to have custody without an actual custody order.
Now let’s say you are a father, let’s say you are a mother and you want to get some type of custody established. Well if you’re unmarried, you can’t file for divorce, of course.
You can’t file for a modification of custody, because none has actually been established. So what you will want to file usually as a paternity action to establish paternity to the father so that there’s a legal decision that he is the father, and then come up with a decision for custody, support, anything like that.
