Abstract

On the basis of in-depth interviews with 75 divorced New York fathers, the phenomenon of postdivorce paternal absence is investigated. The accounts provided by the interviewees suggest that father absence is more than a literal practice: it is also a perceived option and a standard of comparison. Father absence is a strategy of action, the objective of which is to control situations of conflict and tension and emotional states. That the majority of the fathers in the study shared common explanations with regard to father absence is an indiction of their participation in a “masculinist discourse of divorce.” A primary theme in the discourse is the rhetoric of rights.