Topic summary
In-law
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Affinity (law).
Terminology
More commonly, they are known as in-laws or family-in-law, with affinity being usually signified by adding "-in-law" to a degree of kinship. This is standard for the closest degrees of kinship, such as parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, etc., but is frequently omitted in the case of more extended relations. As uncle and aunt are frequently used to refer indifferently to unrelated friends of the family, the terms may be used without specifying whether the person is a cognate or affine. Similarly, the spouse of a cousin may not be called a relation at all or may be referenced as a "cousin by marriage". "By-marriage" can also be used with "uncle" or "aunt", e.g. Princess Léa of Belgium is an aunt by marriage of King Philippe of Belgium.