A father of daughters hears a new voice every time his daughter speaks. He hears a different voice.
Daughters and their fathers are a duality, related by blood, yet crucially different. A daughter is not only the future, but is at present a voice of the “other” to the father, just as he is the first “other” voice the daughter will hear. Humankind reflects the image of God fully in the two genders: male and female. Each generation stands in loving tension: the old giving way to the new, the new honoring the old.
The bond of sameness in the family sustains the differences. In the best circumstances, this is a uniquely strong relationship. The difference of generation and gender, the roles of father and daughter inviolable, are a rock solid foundation for flourishing.
Shakespeare helped write a play, Pericles, about the relationship of fathers and daughters. He has two major pairs of father and daughter: one vile and one virtuous. The vile brings Heavenly judgment on the City and the virtuous, divine blessings. There is a third father and daughter pair that never develops a relationship and so the daughter and the father are cut off from what both might learn. The father hears only the voice of his wife, never his daughter. The audience never hears the daughter speak either, there is nothingness in the father and the daughter. Both of them have no agency, they have missed the power that can come from the good father-daughter relationship.
The ugly relationship in the play is one of tyranny. The father controls the daughter completely and both are consumed by this evil. The voice of the daughter as daughter is killed by the demands of the tyrant father. The daughter learns her bad lessons well and becomes a participant in tyranny. There is no music in the relationship, no harmony, because the difference, the wonderful divide, has been spoiled by control.
While few relationships, thank God, are as ugly, any father should be warned against control that will not let go. A child daughter obeys to grow. The father must decrease as father, so she may increase. Her voice grows stronger as he grows quieter. Only one father and daughter in Pericles do this well, but with splendid results.
During the play, and let me avoid spoiling that ending, the good daughter has saved her father from despair. She has learned a powerful song, one he cannot sing, but that he desperately needs. Youth and womanhood bring the older man the different voice he needs to live. He in turn helps his daughter, Marina. The father, Pericles, hears celestial music and says”
The music of the spheres! List, my Marina.
He hears what her song has enabled him to hear. Marina cannot yet hear herself, not yet, but he begs her to listen for herself! If she cannot quite hear, he can and uses that ability to do good to his daughter, Marina. She has healed him, he sets her free to flourish.
My two daughters have been a great blessing. That will be true when all of us are old! Paul Simon had it right in his song Father and Daughter:
I’m gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you always know
As long as one and one is two
Ooh ooh
There could never be a father
Love his daughter more than I love you*
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With love to Mary Kate and Jane . . .
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