And this summer, it was overshadowed by women who died at the hands of a former or current husband. Partners who have fallen in love or even lived together all their lives, have children, have reached the point of transition to the other side. To deprive their wife of life, to deprive them of that part of the heart that loves, to deprive their children, first of all, of their mother. In recent years, problems that have festered for years have come to the fore, problematic relationships and toxic behaviors have come to the fore. New phrases have entered our lexicon – toxic masculinity, femicide, and many other parts of our society. The man was the target. Evil seems to be more identified with man, as he is the bearer of the forces of the ages and perhaps has a harder time in changing times. Because times are changing. Whether we like it or not.

One aspect of male life we ​​have left aside for now. We don’t talk about it much, perhaps because the focus – and rightly so – is on the lives of women, and especially women who have died at the hands of a partner. However, this aspect is very important and also concerns the relationship between a man and a woman through a different prism.

What does it mean to be a father? How does being a father include both a companion function and a social dimension, whether you are the biological father or not? How responsible is this function and, above all, how much society needs to develop firmly. We distort the mother’s role in children’s development, leaving aside the importance of fatherhood. It was one of the many problems of the past. It can be included in the disadvantages of patriarchy, because patriarch does not necessarily mean father, and this explains a lot about our past.

The point is not to eliminate the male role, even masculinity, and not to demand that the father become the mother.

The theme of the previous 8th Delphi International Psychoanalytic Symposium in August was the father. Symposium proceedings published by Armos. Psychoanalysts from all over the world gathered in Delphi to discuss such an important dimension of culture and society as the father. The father has always been important, ever since the days of the Old Testament. In his writings, Freud did his best to get closer to the meaning and meaning of the father function. However, today more than ever it is necessary to talk about it again. A function that eludes birth biology but concerns all members of society. No society that devalues ​​the role of the father can develop. The question is not to eliminate the male role, even masculinity, and not to demand that the father become a mother, the question is to think about what and who prevents men from becoming fathers and what prevents their most important function from manifesting itself in across the spectrum of society. .

Because a father is not only a biological father. The father is the one who decided to transfer knowledge to the younger members of society, to bequeath the Earth, to leave something of his own in History. To protect its members and help perpetuate the legacy. For example, Matteos Josafat was the father of many people whose memory is today honored in the Concert Hall by the company he founded. Just like a father can be an uncle, a teacher, a boss or a manager at work. If femicides understood their fatherly function, they would not consider killing their wife, even if they hated her, even if she harmed them. The father, along with the desire to survive, must suspend his aggression within the community for the sake of preservation and protection. His personal appetites are limited to the aspect of protecting life and its development.

The most difficult thing for a modern person is to feel something different in himself, something different that he has in his soul and it forces him. Touch his own pains and weaknesses. To get in touch with the femininity that is hidden within him, his submission or even his dependence, especially on a woman. To curb his cannibal appetites. How many young girls have not fallen in love with their teacher, and he stepped off the podium in the name of imaginary love? Something else was needed there, deeper and more essential, and not carnal love in obvious inequality. There, the function of the father is to limit the primitive, the dominant, the aggressive, and to treat the need with tenderness and not with the flesh. In addition, it is known, unfortunately, that often when men lose romantic interest, they also lose interest in the face itself. They refuse it. However, the faces of women and children, even other men, are in great need not only of the nourishment of women, but also of the constant presence and gaze of symbolic fathers.