THE FAMILY - A BIOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND JURIDICAL REALITY

Abstract

The family is a biological reality entailed by the union between a man and a woman
and by procreation; it is a social reality, given the community of life between the spouses,
between parents and children and, generally, between the family members; last but not least,
it is a legal reality, by way of the legal regulations regarding the family.
In a narrow sense, the notion of the family includes the spouses and their minor
children. In a broader sense, the notion of the family would mean the genealogical tree that
includes the totality of the persons descended from a common author, to whom are added the
spouses of those persons.
A precise and rigorous definition of the notion of family is hindered by many
difficulties, simply because it is an object of research in various and numerous sciences,
such as sociology, psychology, law, medicine, etc., each trying to capture its characteristic
aspects from their particular angles. The motivation? The legislators themselves are not
consistent in establishing a legal definition of the family, providing this notion with an array
of different meanings.
In this paper, we will attempt to outline and account for these realities of the family
from a legal standpoint, as evinced by various statutory regulations in this field.