There was a good reason for this admiration in the ancient world – men were the hunters and the protectors of the tribe or family unit. The tribe depended on them for it’s very exis­tence, for without strong males the tribe may well be taken over by other tribes, or worse – the tribe would perish and disappear; and so down through the ages, the males of the society searched, in ever widening circles for better pastures, better hunting areas, safer camping grounds; all the while keeping a close guard on the family unit. So the father had to be a strong, dependable, provider and protector. No wonder, then, that he was to be revered, worshipped almost, by the other members of the group.

A thought here – there are millions of men in the world today who, while not having actually fathered a child, are still fathers by their action of adoption or voluntarily accepting the rôle of father, and these men love their children every bit as much as those who have sired their children.

In today’s society, the most dangerous things this hunter and protector will face are the marauding four-wheel-drives on the highway, the menacing management executives, and the pestilential parking inspectors; but the stresses and obligations on the males of our society remain, for the most part, unchanged – the ability to sire healthy children, the need to provide for the family group such things as food, shelter, and protection; and the handing down of tribal knowledge.

The continuing transfer of this tribal knowledge from generation to generation, from father to son, ensured the continuance of tribal lore, knowledge how to find water, skills in hunting and agriculture, and especially rules of social behaviour. Later it became common for sons to follow their fathers in their trades or professions, in some places it was unthinkable that a son would not continue his father’s trade; but in the first half of the twentieth century two world wars were to interrupt this transfer, especially of the rules of social behaviour, for those two wars were to almost completely remove those very generations in whose hands their elders had entrusted that knowledge, with the result that you see today – a decline in respect for others and, more importantly, a lessening in the acceptance of personal responsibility – those very attributes that separate us from our uncivilised ancestors.

So now, in the twenty-first century, with the trend towards an acceptance of single parent families, fathers are beginning to look like an endangered species; but there will still be a need for the male, even IVF and Cloning technologies need the male input, so to speak; and like a coin, humanity has two sides – obverse and reverse; male and female; and like a coin the two sides cannot be separated. Without either one, humanity could not exist. So no-one should think that the male or the female is better or worse than the other; both are needed for humanity to survive in all its wonderful diversity.

So let’s all celebrate fathers – tall or short, cheerful or grumpy, hairy or bald, fat or thin, rich or poor – fathers, the world needs you!