Talk:Fictive kinship
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Developed in 1995? The term fictive kin has been around long before then. --Gbleem 01:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] relatedness
"Fictive kinship is also known as relatedness. " someone please explain this. --Gbleem 14:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Degree of fictiveness
Would it be fair to say that the degree of the relationship can vary. I could call someone my aunt out of respect or to convey a relationship while not seeing that woman as my actual aunt. My cousin who was legally adopted as a baby I see as my cousin equal to other cousins. Is this a fictive relationship? --Gbleem 15:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, Adoption is a form of fictive kinship that has been formalized through a legal process. Your are emotionally related to that child as a cousin and consider him/her to be your cousin but in truth, the child is not your cousin and the relationship is fictive. That does not, however, dimish the family bond between you. Usually, adopted children grow up being treated exactly as a biological child. For example, having been adopted at birth, your cousin would be unlikely to consider one of his/her siblings as a potential marriage partner due to the fictive kinship deeming such a relationship incestious. Legally, it would not be, but the family would most likely be violently opposed to such a relationship.
- I can give you another example of a fictive relationship that I don't think has ever been formally documented by any anthropologist other than myself, so I can't add it here - it would be original research. It is refered to as 'Cops-In-Law" and defines the relationship between the children of Irish NYC police officers who are current or past partners or who have worked so closely with eacother that a kinship bond is assumed. The way it works is that if your father and John's dad are partners or were parteners, John's dad is your uncle, his wife is your aunt and his children are your cousins. For the purpose of romance and marriage, Cops-in-Law cousins and uncles are off limits. For example, I am female so under this fictive system of kinship, I cannot date or marry my father's partner past or present nor his partners' children past or present. Assuming there is no pre-existing consanguinal relation, this "Cops-In-Law" relation is totally fictive. When I researched it, it had a variety of names and some families had taken it so seriously that they had forgotten such relationships were fictive, continuing to count successive generations as "real" cousins once or twice removed. Since it's primarily an Irish thing, it inevitably gets mixed up with blood relations and becomes even less transparant as fictive. This fictive relationship does, however, serve a valauble purpose. It protects the bond of trust between partnered cops who up until recently were mostly male. The fictive kinship served to put "off-limits" female relatives to the two partnered males and enhance their perceived relationship as "brothers." It seems to be something that is dying off or just not so formalized.
- In any event, your relationship to your adopted cousin is very real to you and your family even if academics would classify it as fictive. There are many more types of fictive relationships than those described in the article or by me above. What they all have in common is a goal of formalizing a deeply emotional and important bond between people who love and care for eachother. Anthropologists simply find the term useful to distinguish such relationships from blood or marrige relationships. Hope that helps.LiPollis 10:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Would adoption not be considered just as valid as marriage? I understand the non-fictive nature of biological relation, but it seems that marriage and adoption are similar as far as how legitimate people's relations are, since they are both legally and culturally recognized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.153.3.121 (talk) 18:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Editorial?
"An alternative standpoint would be that 'either you're related or you aren't'." This statement seems too editorial for Wikipedia. Should it be deleted, or would clarificaton help?
