It also
sets off a bureaucratic chain of
events which backs up the message that fathers can treat parenting as optional, as health visitors talk to mothers rather than fathers, children centres build their services around what they perceive to be mothers» (rather than families») needs, schools fail to record contact details of fathers and, when a young person ends up
in court for misbehaviour, magistrates hand down parenting orders to mothers rather than fathers, even when the father is resident
in the household and present
in the
courtroom.
When Tiro, the confidential secretary (and slave) of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he
sets in motion a chain of
events that will eventually propel his master into one of the most suspenseful
courtroom dramas
in history.