Psychic Hazards of Unwed Paternity

Abstract

personality types and diagnostic categories, if they meet minimum requirements of age and initiative. Little has been written about fatherhood in general and less is known about the subgroup of the unwed; furthermore, it seems unlikely that we will obtain comprehensive data on this or the related subject of abortion as long as both are unmentionable subjects. There are, however, at least two reasons for supposing that qualifications for licensed and un licensed parenthood are equally unselective, and that men with all kinds and degrees of pathology are eligible. First, clinical experience in general does not support the hope—born of our need for certainty—that any symptom, symbol, or act has an absolute meaning. The per sonality of the ulcer patient cannot be pre dicted from the sore in his stomach, the snake does not always mean what we think, the act which initiates paternity may sig nify nothing more than a witless discharge of physiological tension—and nothing less than the fullest expression of the most ma ture relationship. Second, we have clinical experience with this subject, although we lack research data, and it suggests that unwed fathers defy categories as stubbornly as do other groups. A great variety of psychosocial predisposing and precipitating factors can lead to the on set of this condition.