For Girls, Having Dad Around Is Preventive Medicine.

2001 MAY 10 - (NewsRx Network) -- For young daughters, father does know best - if he is around.

If a dad is absent, the chances greatly increase for a fatherless daughter to become sexually active while still a teenager, according to a study by a team of Texas A&M University researchers.

In their study, titled "The father/daughter relationship and its impact on selected intimate outcomes of adult females," Texas A&M researchers Danny Ballard, Brian Colwell, and Janna Molen, along with Marvin Genuchi of Kingwood College, determined that the absence of a father or father figure greatly affects a young girl's decision to have a sexual relationship before age 19.

In addition, daughters who lacked a father or father figure were twice as likely to be sexually abused by someone and much more likely to have multiple sexual partners.

"The findings are clear: if a father is present, the daughter is far less likely to be sexually active before age 19," says Ballard, a professor of health and kinesiology in the College of Education. "The presence of a father - and the daughter's relationship with him - greatly influences the sexual behavior of young women."

The findings are important, she believes, because statistics show the United States is increasingly becoming a fatherless society. Since 1950, the number of American children growing up in homes without a father has quadrupled.

The researchers surveyed almost 1,000 community college and nursing school female students. They asked if a father had been present during their lives prior to age 16, and if so, could his behavior toward the daughter be described as "caring" or "overprotective."