Previous marriage inlaws are they permanent ?

[feelsrgreen]

This may seem an odd question but with a second marriage added to a living relative, does the previous inlaws and children retain their relationship to the relative.
Hard to make it sound right!

E.g. John marries Susan Smith , who has siblings Charles and Diana.
Susan's parents are then "mother in law and father in law" to John.
Charles and Diana are inlaws, - bro and sis inlaws.
John divorces from Susan.

John remarries to Sally Jones.
Q. 1. Does Charles and Diana from first marriage remain as bro and sis inlaws?
Q. 2. Also does Susan's parents - 'John's Ma in law and Pa inlaw! remain as before the divorce.
Note - he has new inlaws from new marriage to Sally Jones.
Ditto Q for a third marriage.
Personally I hate relationships in family trees so don't use them but....

Further questions arise from children to first marriage and then from second marriage.
Q. Are the children from both marriages related to each other?

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: Previous marriage inlaws are they permanent ?

questions arise from children to first marriage and then from second marriage.
Q. Are the children from both marriages related to each other?

Easy part first: they are half-siblings (half-brothers or half-sisters).

with a second marriage added to a living relative, does the previous inlaws and children retain their relationship to the relative.

I imagine you'll find people with both opinions, yes and no. I'm inclined to call the parents/siblings of a divorced spouse "ex-in-laws" rather than "in-laws". However, in the Middle Ages (and in current law which incorporates the notion), marriage creates a relationship between people (sister-in-law, mother-in-law, etc.), called an "affinity", and that relationship survives a divorce. (Indeed, in some cases the act of sexual union outside of marriage was held to create an affinity, which in turn prevented marriage between one of the participants and his/her relative by affinity.)

To give a current example, the State of Texas maintains a Nepotism Chart (pdf) which specifically states such relationships survive a divorce if (and only if) there is a child (biological or adoptive) of the marriage in question.

So the answer to this question is probably, "it depends who you ask."

[Mary Arthur]

Re: Previous marriage inlaws are they permanent ?

Personally I hate relationships in family trees so don't use them but....

As Reunion doesn't list in laws, am not sure what your question is. (after divorce, the 'spouse of ' remains)

[rclrocco]

Re: Previous marriage inlaws are they permanent ?

If you don't use relationships in Reunion, perhaps one answer to your query is to put, former, in front of the later person's status, ie former brother in law etc. but I think that many would argue that a later marriage doesn't change a relationship, it just adds another one.

[HJKeats]

Re: Previous marriage inlaws are they permanent ?

This is the most wonderful group of genealogist ever, thanks for all of your insights and helpfulness I love this discussion forum.

My input here may be a little bit off-topic but it does highlight an issue of naming the relationship between individuals. Most importantly of course is the one of consanguinity whereas the one of affinity at times can be convoluted as in the novelty song by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe,