[Albion Wilde]

Actually, that's really an old principle from common law -- a child born to a married woman is the husband's responsibility. The State just wants to find the nearest 'scapegoat' so as to avoid any responsibility on its part.

It was a different shade of meaning -- not for the State to avoid responsibility per se, but for the State to foster the taking of personal responsibility by the free individual who performed the act that created the child. This was the standard before creeping socialism. The legal phrase often used was that the court wished to avoid "piercing the veil of the family."

[expatpat]

not for the State to avoid responsibility per se, but for the State to foster the taking of personal responsibility by the free individual who performed the act that created the child

Hardly. We are talking about a married woman bearing a child fathered by a man who is not her husband -- it's the husband who was stuck with supporting the child, not the one with the 'personal responsibility'.