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Author: Gerald Ogbuja
Posted to the web: 4/30/2008 6:31:45 PM

Fatherhood has a very long history, but virtually no historian (Demos, 1982).  The emphasis upon the history of family as a unit of analysis for understanding society maintains a place of prominence  in anthropology and sociology. While the historical emphasis on fatherhood and family has not been wavered, the family in all forms have been subjected to critiisms and as a result of such criticisms, have undergone dramatic changes. Studies indicate that much of historical origin of family was based not only on love between man and wife but also on an ideology of parental love and care for children (Dudgeon et al, 2008). Other facts known from historical accounts were bazed on letters and papers, biographies and autobiographies and the popular press of the time (Dubbert et al, 1979). Besides autobiographies and expressions emerging from the press, the relationship between men's intentions and desires for conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and fatherhood have been poorly studied and hence are little understood in national and international context (Dudgron et al, 2008).
 
Sequel to the above view points, anthropology finds rites of passage for boys to manhood, one of the most widespread cultural forms across the planet. Anthropology also finds passage from fatherhood to Grand-fathers to ancestors, one of the most widespread African values. The passage from boyhood to manhood has been explored over the century with great impact on African development and Anthropology. However, cross-cultural studies of men's fathering behaviors do not center on an investiment in childcare during infancy and early childhood. Rather men's investment as fathers are often tie to the concretization of access to sexual or economic resources from their female partners, their realization of broader social obligations to produce children for their families or communities, and other interest in the child potential as an adult member of a social group (Browner, 1986; Green & Biddlecom, 2000; Guyer, 2000).
 
Besides explorative interest in child's potential studies in sociology and anthropology, historical inquiries indicate that men's interests in fatherhood are linked to, but not captured by, a western perspective of fatherhood that emphasize for example genetic relationships and economic responsibility, or based on negative examples of what fathers should not be (abusive, absent, adulterous, irrsposible, double standard etc) These factors led to two lines of anthropological investigation on father-child relationships: (1) ethological primate's studies in biological anthropology; and (2) culture and personality studies in cultural anthropology (Tripp-Reimer et al, 1991).
 
The Historical and sociological perspective of fatherhood cannot be explored without assessment and functions namely: provision, protection, endowment, caregiving and formation. The above roles cannot be actualize if the father is absent. Because fathers are critical in the development of their sons and daughters, their presence in the family is very imparative. In all historical waves, fathers provide half the genetic material for personality devlopment of children. Sequel to the above, fathers are primary and most valuable support persons for the mother during pregnancy and child-birth (Heins, 2007). The function of the father through the ages in promoting a responsible and disciplined male identity and the consequences of the decline of the authority of the father in Western culture have caused a lot of damage on the family.
 
This is the more reason why countless children around the world grow up without fathers. Using images of the father from classical or historical antiquity to the present day, Luigi Zoja view the origins and evloution of the father from a Jungian perspective. Luigi argues that the father's role in bringing up children in a social construction that has been subject to change throught out history. Exploring these issues from historical, sociological and psychological point of view, the father will be welcomed both by people from a wide varieties of disciples including pratitioners and students of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, and by educated general readers. He will be welcomed because family has held a historically salient position in sociological investigations and development of man.