Fatherly love
Father love in the sense of this keyword is the love a father has for his - also adult - children. (The same word can grammatically mean a child's love for his father; this usage has become uncommon.)
Social imprint
The fatherly love is strongly tied to the family forms , gender roles and other cultural patterns of a certain society , as well as to various legal , social and economic boundary conditions ( see also: Patriarchy , paternalism and inheritance law ).
In the majority of known societies it does not necessarily have to include tenderness , but always has elements of care and responsibility . Often one also expects a loving father to act differently towards sons and daughters.
In sociology , Ferdinand Tönnies carefully analyzed the typical community elements of fatherly love in his study Community and Society (1887, Book 1, § 5).
About history
Religious-historical aspects
“Fatherly love” has a special meaning in Christianity ; this is reflected in literature and the visual arts of the Occident.
The Jews had been in the persons of the patriarchs Abraham ( Binding of Isaac (), Isaac unauthorized Son blessing surreptitiously ) and Jacob (father love and hatred corresponding brother) set an example many forms of fatherly love.
The Christianity has the heightened religious form in the image of God as a father. Examples: So God loved the world that he gave it his only begotten Son ; and the Lord's Prayer as a fundamental prayer .
Most recent modern times
The most popular German homecoming piece by Wolfgang Borchert Outside the Door was still about the failing fatherly love (of God) in 1947 .
Even in the 20th century, the 'fatherly love' of the heads of state (especially the most questionable) for their peoples was a fixed form of panegyric (adulation).
In contrast to the love of a mother , in the modern, 'western' affluent society after the Second World War, love of the father is no longer simply assumed to be a substantially effective factor, nor that it must be demanded with full moral force. In others - e.g. B. Middle Eastern societies, on the other hand, it can be assumed to be common. However, the latest studies show that children from Western societies who grow up without paternal love have an increased risk of failure and are in some cases very difficult to build stable relationships, develop self-confidence and generally get along in life.
The opposite: hatred of father
In this context the opposite occurs, namely the father's hatred of his descendants - for example in monarchies from the ruling father to his crown prince or in archaic mythologies : the Greek god Kronos (Roman: Saturnus ) devoured his descendants. Modern fairy tale research also refers to this aspect, see The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats .
The mythology also addresses the "opposite perspective", the son's hatred of the father: Zeus emasculates his father Kronos , and the complex Oedipus myth was often examined as a result, particularly intensively by Sigmund Freud , who used the famous term Oedipus -Complex introduced into psychoanalysis .
See also
literature
- Horst Herrmann : Fatherly love. I just want your best. Reinbek 1989. ISBN 3-499-18248-3
- Jack Winter: Coming home to God's fatherly love. Berlin, 4th edition 2005. ISBN 3-935992-07-6
