In 1616 Ben Jonson wrote this poem on the death of his first son:

 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;

My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.

Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,

Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.

Oh, could I lose all father now! For why

Will man lament the state he should envy?

To have so soon ‘scaped world’s and flesh’s rage,

 And if no other misery yet age!

 Rest in soft peace, and asked, say, Here doth lie

Ben Jonson – his best piece of poetry.

 For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,

 As what he loves may never like too much.

In this poem, Jonson expresses the love of father for his child, a love that is as deep as any mother’s, and yet for generations men have been told not to show their emotions – indeed, men in some societies were not supposed to have any emotions at all; but if you look through some ancient literature you will find many examples of a father’s love for, and devotion to, his children, and examples of the reciprocal love from the children to the father.

Plutarch calls Aemilius Paulus “the most affectionate father in Rome.”

Virgil says, “Can we…give the praise of valour…to a man who should abandon his father or desert his King?” and Aeneas describes his father, Anchises, as, “My dear, dear father, spent with age…Ease of my cares, and solace of my pain.”

Sophocles wrote, “For me, my father, no treasure is so precious as thy welfare. What, indeed, is a nobler ornament for children than a prosperous sire’s fair fame?”

The Bible tells us, in Exodus chapter 20, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days be long upon the land that the Lord thy God hath given thee.” Indeed, the Bible is full of examples and instructions regarding duty to our parents.

While all this was going on, across the world, in China, Confucius was saying that the chief duty of children when at home was to, “Serve father and elder brothers”, and, “The father conceals misconduct of the son, and the son conceals misconduct of the father. Up­rightness is to be found in this.” In our society, of course, the father and the son would both be charged as accessories to the crime the other had committed! But that veneration of fatherhood was to carry, to a lesser extent, down to the Victorian age when fathers were looked on with awe in their own households, and to some extent this happens even today, with such well-worn phrases as “Just wait till your father gets home!” and “If your father could see you now,” to those words that all husbands have heard, “You’re just like your father” but this never seems to be meant as a compliment!