ABSTRACT
Although fathers everywhere share a fundamental commitment to the successful growth and development of their children, anthropologists and other observers have documented wide variations in the ways that fathers in different cultures interact with their children and construe their own roles as fathers. Margaret Mead, for example, described a series of contrasts in paternal behavior among three Pacific societies: while some fathers were indulgent playmates with their children, others were feared disciplinarians (Mead 1935). More generally, in polygynous societies where the wives maintain geographically separate households, fathers may be present in the lives of their young children only intermit tently. This was the traditional pattern in some East African groups, now recreated by the trend toward urban employment for men while the women and children stay home on the family farm (Abbott 1976; Weisner 1976). At the opposite extreme are "house-husbands," fathers in postindustrial societies who (usually on a temporary basis) are the primary caretakers of an infant or young child.
