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Jesse
Nitzevet
Saul
Ahinoam
David
Michal
Jonathan


David and Jonathan, sworn friends and confidants, became brothers-in-law when David married Jonathan's sister Michal.[1]

One's sibling-in-law is the sibling of one's spouse or the spouse of one's sibling. By gender, this is specified as brother-in-law for the brother of one's spouse or the husband of one's sibling, and sister-in-law for the sister of one's spouse or the wife of one's sibling.[2]

Just like other affines, or "in-laws", siblings-in-law are related by a type of kinship called affinity. A more distant type of relation is that of a co-sibling-in-law; that is, one's spouse's sibling's spouse or one's sibling's spouse's sibling. Just like the children of one's siblings, the children of one's siblings-in-law are called simply nieces and nephews – if necessary, specified whether "by marriage", as opposed to "by blood" or "by adoption".

One study, examining the issue of envy in the triadic system of sibling, sibling-in-law and spouse, concluded that "The sibling-in-law relationship shared similarities with both spousal and sibling relationships" and that "Relational closeness and satisfaction for all relationships in the triad were correlated."[3]

In Islamic law (shariʿa)[4] and Jewish law (halakhah)[5] sexual relations between siblings-in-law are prohibited as incestuous, unless the spouse is no longer married. Conversely, in Judaism there was the custom of yibbum, whereby a man had a non-obligatory duty to wed his deceased brother's childless widow so she might have progeny by him.[6]

If one pair of siblings is married to another pair of siblings, the siblings-in-law are thus doubly-related, each of the four both through one's spouse and through one's sibling, while the children of the two couples are double cousins.

See also[]

Look up Sibling-in-law in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References[]

  1. ^ 1 Samuel 18:20–27.
  2. ^ Cambridge Dictionaries Online. "Family: non-blood relations".
  3. ^ Yoshimura, C.G (2010). "The experience and communication of envy among siblings, siblings-in-law, and spouses". Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. http://spr.sagepub.com/content/27/8/1075.short. 
  4. ^ "Forbidden...that you should marry two sisters at one time"[Quran 4:23 (Translated by al-quran.info)]
  5. ^ Leviticus 18:16, 18:18.
  6. ^ Deuteronomy 25:5–10.


This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia. The original content was at Sibling-in-law. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with this Familypedia wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons License.
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