Paternity is poetical

The article opens with a classical example from Homer’s Iliad, where Hector, a warrior and father in ancient Greece, bids farewell to his wife Andromache and their infant son.

He entrusts her with domestic duties like weaving, while war is reserved for men.

This scene reflects a long-standing cultural idea that fatherhood should be distant and heroic, while motherhood is tied to caregiving.

Artists and writers, such as Paul Gauguin and D H Lawrence, later echoed this view, arguing that distance from family fosters artistic creativity.

Lawrence claimed that a father’s remote love provides stability for the child, while Cyril Connolly famously wrote in 1938 that the presence of a child (‘the pram in the hall’) hinders artistic work.

This narrative suggests that fatherhood and creativity are incompatible, a perspective the article challenges.