SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN 63 (1), January – April 2014, pp. 21–40 © Indian Sociological Society Failing Fatherhood: A Study of Childless Men in Rural Andhra Pradesh Sucharita Pujari and Sayeed Unisa Male perspective on childlessness remains a neglected area of study and has not received the attention it merits. Based on interviews conducted with childless men in rural Andhra Pradesh, this paper makes an attempt to capture men’s voices and their experiences of infertility. The analysis shows that there are several myths regarding causes of childlessness. Men silently suffer the burden of childless- ness, emotionally and socially. Taunts, abuses, and snide remarks towards wives and the respondents make them anxious and concerned about their childless status. The urge to have a biological child is intense and their childless status poses a severe challenge to their masculinity. [Keywords: Andhra Pradesh; childlessness; fatherhood; infertility; masculinity] Difficulty in conceiving a child has a significant impact on the couples experiencing it. Fertility is a universal human concern and anguish over infertility is an obvious consequence of that concern. For a man, starting a family is considered a major developmental task as fatherhood gives men a sense of importance and satisfaction. In all societies a man is expected to marry and take over certain familial responsibilities that include producing offspring that connects him to larger components of life including his own family, ethnic group, and occupation. Children complete a family, provide later-life companionship, and are regarded as enhancing/maintaining status (Rutstein and Shah 2004; Chowdhry 2005; Hadley and Hanley 2011). In the Middle East and many other patrilineal and pronatalist societies around the world, households and extended families consider children to be a source of both labour and family power (Dudgeon and Inhorn 2003). Long ago, Margaret Mead reported that in