The Legal Foundations of the Family

Family is a very important pillar in society. To regulate the very diverse situations that can happen every day, legal foundations have been laid.

Family is, without a doubt, a very relevant social structure. Sure, it’s a very private structure, it’s the basis of a society, but it’s also of legal importance. The concept of family is often regulated and protected by many laws. It’s also used, among other things, to solve any conflicts its members may have.

The public administration has to set policies to guarantee the families’ and its members’ wellbeing. Although in the past years, the concept of family has gone through a lot of transformations, it’s still the main pillar of our society,

Likewise, regulations have had to adapt to these ongoing changes too. In this article, we’ll talk about some of the elements involved in the legal foundations of the family.

The legal foundations of the family

What does “family” mean?

Mainly, a family is an institution between spouses and their descendants. A family’s purpose is preservation, reproduction, and development of the human species in a setting of love, respect, and protection.

Above all, this institution is very important for the greater good. Within it, its conditions allow its members to fully practice their rights and liberties, just like their duties as well. This is why the family has constitutional relevance.

To clarify, the family is, in many cases, a haven of safety and protection for its members. That is to say, within the family, they’ll learn the key aspects of socialization, values, and emotional and intellectual development they need to thrive as human beings.

Thus, the family can be defined as a group of physical people related to each other, either by marriage ties or kinship.

Types of families

According to the legal foundations of the family, and legal and administrative effects, there are several types of families. The main ones are the nuclear family, the extended family, and the polynuclear family. A nuclear family is the parents and their children. For example, if you talk about large families, nuclear families are it.

An extended family has many members with a more or less close bond and keep close relations. A polynuclear family includes several nuclear families.

There’s also the extended nuclear family with other relatives, and one-parent, or incomplete, families with one parent and their children.

The legal foundations of the family: the right to have a family

The right to have a family is a set of legal rules that have different aspects to guarantee the legal foundations. Mainly, it’s about a set of rules that have to do with the partner’s relations, with the parentage and legal guardianship of their children, and the parental authority.

Each of these rules has its guidelines. Thus, with partner’s relations, mainly related to marriage, it regulates the union, personal and economic aspects, crisis, separations, divorces or annulments.

In parentage, the right to have a family regulates the matrimonial parentage, the non-matrimonial, and also adoptions. It also regulates parentage and legal guardianship for minors, especially if the parents aren’t together. Also, parentage rules regulate parental authority and legal representation of minors.

In conclusion, it’s worth noting that the family’s legal foundations and the right to have a family have an important and ethical approach. Religion and morality affect this aspect of the law.