Paternity and Fatherhood

What kind of connotation does the word father have in everyday language? How have states and governments defined and manipulated the paternal role? What is a father-figure? What can literature tell us about absent or overbearing fathers? How far is the cultural construct of fatherhood linked to biological paternity, and what is biological paternity? These are some of the questions explored in this book, which together offer a view of fatherhood across the centuries.