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This article postulates that even, though the role of the father has changed in recent times—with many fathers doing caretaking chores formerly delegated to the mother—there has been no reduction in the importance of the symbolic father or his organizing role as the initiator and subsequently the representative of the Law, nor is the Lacanian notion of the foreclosure of the Name-of-the-Father any less relevant. Whether the father is actually present, has effectively disappeared, or has been voluntarily eliminated by the mother, the inevitable and unavoidable reality is that we are all born of the union of a man and woman, and we have the sex of one or the other. This reality weighs in upon the psychological and physical development of each human being, and is necessarily the object of particular elaboration for each of us. The personal characteristics—that is, the general psychosomatic economy of the mother and father—heavily influence the traits of the offspring, whether as infant, child, adolescent, or even young adult.
Earlier, Debray discussed the importance of the inheritance of the maternal and paternal preconscious system by the child. In this current article, she speaks to the manner in which the maternal and paternal