IN THE 1950s, A DISTANT TEENAGE RELATIVE of mine got pregnant out of wedlock. The father was a college boy who, despite repeated entreaties from the girl’s mild-mannered papa, expressed absolutely no interest in marrying her and declared he had no intention of paying a dime’s worth of child support. So her papa phoned one of the girl’s doting uncles, a burly local politician with a well-deserved reputation as a street fighter and a license to carry a gun. After a “visit” from this uncle, the boy had a sudden change of heart. As family legend goes, he proposed on both knees and promised to provide for her until death — death being a subject that her uncle had helped him to confront. Within weeks, a wedding date was set. Within months, a bouncing baby boy was born. Within years, more children followed. The girl was happy, the children were happy, and all was matter-of-factly forgiven. ” You see,” her Italian grandmother used to say, “one man can make the babies, but sometimes other men have to make the fathers.”