ABSTRACT
When and where did fatherhood begin? Or when and where are fathers first to be found? As we ply our way up the river of time, all hopes of discovering the sources of fatherhood will first have to make their way through a swamp where nature and culture intermingle; and in places such as these, research can only look for questions, rather than furnish answers. What parts of paternal behavior are instinctive, or innately present without any need to be learned and taught? And which of its parts, on the other hand, derive from social inventions, or from bodies of rules with which human beings have chosen to govern themselves? And when, for the very first time, did men begin to act like fathers?
