© Peter Watson 2017 This fairly disparate ‘suite’ of themes emerges from the research but there is, to repeat, at present, no wider or more totalizing theory as to how these matters hang together conceptually. The following chapters will explain how they can be reconciled.  To put the argument in a nutshell, the following chapters will show – in detail – how the discovery of fatherhood brought about all the changes we have been considering. The discovery of fatherhood entailed: • An increase in the importance of the penis; • That ancestorship suddenly became specific: individuals were linked in nuclear families, not just in the tribal grouping; • Fatherhood produced a new idea of human agency, based on the fact that males could father specific offspring; • The penis, when erect, was hard and ‘pierced’ the woman; • Nuclear families became the basic unit of society, replacing tribes or clans, and occupying houses; • These units developed unequally: some men were more fecund than other men; wealth congregated according to nuclear families; • Some families were longer-lived than others, which ‘failed’ or died out; • In time, people got used to the role of fatherhood, and its importance – once central – faded over time. And so …