Kin Relationships

Questions about Definition

Changes over the last 30 years in patterns of family formation and dissolution have given rise to questions about the definition of kin relationships. Guises of kinship have emerged to which the criteria of blood and marriage do not apply. Assisted reproduction is a first example. Births resulting from infertility treatments such as gestational surrogacy and in vitro fertilization with ovum donation challenge the biogenetic basis for kinship. A similar question pertains to adoption, which has a history going back to antiquity. Partnerships formed outside of marriage are a second example. Strictly speaking, the family ties of nonmarried cohabitees do not fall into the category of kin, notwithstanding the greater acceptance over time of consensual unions both formally and informally. Broken and reconstituted families are a third example. The growth in divorce, remarriage, and the formation of stepfamilies has created complex kin networks in which relationships between people who have blood ties are not sustained, and kinlike relationships exist between people who have no blood ties. The chosen families of gays and lesbians are a fourth example. [Page 952]Their extended family networks, often including former lovers, former spouses, friends, children from heterosexual marriages, and children acquired through adoption or the use of birth technologies, are personally constructed rather than governed by rules of blood and marriage.

The diversity in networks of kin relationships is relatively new, and scientific and lay vocabularies have difficulty keeping pace with social reality. The field does not have the terminology for new and complex kin relationships. The term ex-grand-daughter-in-law, introduced by Gunhild Hagestad, serves as an example: Not only do scholars need to get used to the idea that grandchildren can be middle-aged adults with families of their own, but the field lacks the words for relationships shaped by divorce and remarriage.

In scientific texts, the terms quasi or fictive kin are often used to denote relationships where the traditional rules of kin membership do not apply. These terms carry the connotation that there are real family relationships (defined by blood and marriage) and other family relationships. There is a need to rework the definition of kin relationships to take better account of social reality. Insight can be gained from the practice of law, where regulations regarding adoption, guardianship, gay marriage, registered partnership, inheritance, visiting rights, and maintenance obligations are being developed. Increasingly, conceptualizations of kin relationships need to consider construction and flux rather than take an assumed established structure as their point of departure.

...