Paternal role in the family at the end of the millennium.

Abstract

Some of the significant changes that have taken place in the family structure are pointed out, taking into consideration reflections from anthropology and sociology.The paternal symbolic function is a nodal element in that structure, since it greatly determines the son‟s ordaughter‟s psychic structuring.The social declination of paternity (social orfamiliar) alluded to by sociologists, historians and jurists is considered so as to determine its possible impact on the paternal symbolic function from the perspective of psychoanalysis. Both the father‟s excess or shortage of power are seen as a problematization of that function.Other elements coming from the social collective add to the blurring of differences (man-woman). The difference of genders and the symbolic castration that imply the psychic structuring with a prevalence of repression upon denial are essential pieces that the paternal function provides so as to give rise to the subject (the unconscious) We putforward reflections on this function and on the importance of the man‟s positioning vis á vis te woman‟s desire.We alsoinsist upon the need for reviewing our theory together with the contributions of other sciences so as to give account of the remarkable and revulsive changes we are undergoing at the end of this millennium. It is in this complex scope of ourview of man‟s social and cultural changes that the psychoanalytic discourse, with no certainty whatsoever, commits us to ajoint search and reflection.