Souffrances des pères lors des divorces

Abstract

Under pressure from the transformations of the forms of family, from the evolutions of law, and from the advances of the biological and medical sciences, the institutional points of reference of the fatherhood have been changed. Before, the father was designated by the bonds of marriage and endowed with paternal power. The suppression of paterfamilias in the law and the decline of marriage changed these foundations. From then on, the fathers are the object of suspicions. Furthermore, society has organised a real legal eviction of the fathers in the framework of divorces. Now, becoming the father requires a subjective work, which depends on a political time related to legal and institutional set-ups. The default of this system, during the contemporary period could have made this work difficult for each divorced father. Our clinical examples show the echo with singular sufferings of the fathers and their legal exclusion. But they also show the singular conscious and unconscious factors, which do not necessarily come from divorce.