Degree of relationship: historical and legal characteristics

The concepts of "kinship", "degree of kinship" are inextricably linked with the terms family and marriage. At the same time, the family in the relevant branch of private law is regarded as a union of a man and a woman, who is based on kinship and is bound by certain rights and obligations on either side. Marriage in the modern Russian legislation is just a properly registered voluntary union of two persons who form a family for the purpose of joint farming and raising children.

The degree of kinship for the concept of "marriage" also plays a certain role: thus, marriage between close relatives is impossible . At the same time for the concept of "family" this term is of much greater importance.

From the point of view of family law, kinship is a blood relationship between two people or between a person and a group of people. This definition emphasizes that kinship is possible only between people, one of which comes from another, or in the event that they have any common ancestor.

The terms "degree of kinship" and "kinship line" are of great importance for the concretization of this concept. The degree of kinship is a unit of measurement of the social distance between relatives, used to compile a genealogy. It is worth paying special attention to that the degree of kinship includes the mutual rights and duties of certain relatives, which not only derive from the moral representations of people, but are also sanctioned by the state in the form of laws and other normative legal acts.

Kinship lines are direct and lateral. A straight line includes those relatives who directly originate from one another: the father - the son - the grandson - the great-grandson ... At the same time, the count can be made both on the ascending and descending lines. Lateral lines imply that the relatives have a common ancestor. These include brothers, sisters, nephews, uncles, aunts.

The degree of kinship depends on the number of births that two persons share. So, the first degree of kinship means either that one person originated directly from the other (father and son), or that they have a common parent (brothers and sisters).

The practical side of determining the degree of kinship is not only the compilation of the genealogical tree, but also the action of the relevant articles of the Family Code on the prohibition of marriage between people who are with each other in blood relations. Practically in all civilized countries it is forbidden to create a marriage union between relatives in a straight line (ascending or descending) up to the second or even third tribe.

This prohibition on incest is necessary in order to ensure stability in the development of society and its individual structures, in the development of communications between individual families and clans. From the biological point of view, such a ban promotes the smoothing of sexual rivalry within the family, the creation of a favorable microclimate in it and the necessary conditions for biological reproduction.

Thus, the degree of kinship in modern social life is not only the most important aspect of family law, but also a certain moral regulator of relations between people.