In today’s culture, most men’s animal instinct has been changed from survival and propagation at all costs, to a sense of providing for family and offspring in the best way they possibly can.

A scientific study has proved it. It also found that there are still some males whose instinct is to father children with varied partners. It is a throwback to our evolutionary development. Males of any species seek to mate in an attempt to have as good a chance as possible to continue lineage.

But evolution has also changed us from survivalist, to now being top of the pyramid. During this rapid period of change, males also changed and changed drastically. From the time of settlements onwards, a new behaviour emerged – that of nurturing young in the best way possible in a stable environment to ensure the very same thing, continuation of lineage.

Scientists have now found that men's aptitude for childcare may be reflected in the size of their testes. Researchers found that men with smaller testes were more likely to take charge of children's bath-time, visits to the doctor, night-time comforting, and other parenting jobs than others who have larger testicles.

The same story was borne out by brain scans which showed that men with smaller testes reacted more strongly to photographs of their own children than did men with larger ones.

Experts revealed a correlation between testes size and parenting. They suspect the size of a man's testes influences how involved he gets in childcare. But they also believe that the reverse could be equally true: indulging in childcare may make a man's testes shrink. The researchers said testes size is a proxy for the quantity and quality of sperm a man produces, so men with larger testes may be biologically more tuned towards mating than parenting.

Taken as a pair, the men's testes varied in size from 18cm3 to 60cm3. The typical pair was around 38cm3.

They found a clear trend, with parenting scores rising as testes size fell.

It is a huge knock to Maltese psyche. Come on, there’s no other way of putting it – in Malta, men’s balls, are an object that permeates deep into the man’s thinking. If you have no balls, you are weak. If you are courageous, you have balls. The expression a kick to the guts is a kick in the balls. The list goes on.

So what does this say? It says that men who have smaller balls are, scientifically proven, to be more attentive fathers. It really is a contradiction to everything that the image of a ‘man’ is painted to be. Or, is it the other way round?  It is, absolutely fascinating.