Primary physical custody is a term that is often used in child custody orders to denote the parent with whom a child spends or lives the majority of the time with.
It is a term that is often used in cases where one parent has more time with his/her child than the other.
Fathers regularly report a perception that mothers are favored when deciding physical custody of infants.
This may be in part because sexist laws have been passed in states that younger children (of tender years) should be with their mother until a certain age of maturity.
Research by Joan B. Kelly, Ph.D., and Michael E. Lamb, Ph.D. have challenged this philosophy in recent years.