Not everyone will immediately say who he is the son of a cousin or who the godfathers are. Even more difficulties with terms arise after the wedding - the number of relatives increases, new family ties appear - brother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law … When addressing these words are used extremely rarely, but there are times when clarification of the degree of relationship is necessary.
Instructions
Step 1
In genealogical terminology, there are different degrees of kinship: kinship terms, property terms, and unrelated relationship terms. The wife's sister is called sister-in-law, a term referred to in terms of property. A property is a relationship between people that arises not by kinship, but as a result of a marriage. This also includes, for example, a son-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law. The general name for any person who is in a property with someone is intimate.
Step 2
There is also the term "brother-in-law" - this is the husband of the sister-in-law, that is, the husband of the wife's sister.
Step 3
Other terms used to refer to the next of kin of the spouses: The husband's brother is a brother-in-law;
The husband's sister is a sister-in-law;
The wife's brother is a brother-in-law;
The husband's parents are mother-in-law and father-in-law;
The wife's parents are mother-in-law and father-in-law.
Step 4
It is interesting to compare the use of the terms property and relationship in different languages. Unlike the Russian language, where each case of kinship and non-kinship relations has its own name, in English, for example, there is no such large set of terms. If you need to name your new relatives in English, it is enough to remember the wording "in-law", which literally means "by law", that is, as a result of marriage. Thus, sister-in-law in English sounds like "sister-in-law", mother-in-law (wife's mother) - "mother-in-law", brother-in-law (brother of the wife) - "brother-in-law".
Step 5
In German, there is one word for the terms "sister-in-law" and "sister-in-law" - die Schwägerin, in French - belle-sœur.
Step 6
Many of the above concepts are already becoming obsolete and gradually cease to be widely used in speech. However, they are quite common, for example, in the literature, and it would be useful to know who is to whom.
