LEGAL TERMS – 5

Family: A family is, generally, a group of people with a common affiliation and,
traditionally, a group with relations by blood or marriage.
Domestic: It is related to a family or related to family matters.
Family Law: the law governing social status or the status of people with respect
to each other within the smallest unit of society, family.
Family court/Domestic court: court devoted to family law matters.
Married: means in the status of marriage.
Single: Not in the status of marriage
Marriage / Matrimony /Wedlock: It is the state-recognized legal union of one
man and one woman for life, unless terminated by death or a court.
Natural person: a natural person is an actual human being and not merely a
person or entity recognized by law.
Natural Parent: a person who, with a person of the opposite sex, procreates a
natural person, and is the mother or father of a child.
Issue: A person’s child or children, and their children, are sometimes known as
the person’s issue .
Issue of marriage: The children born of a particular married couple are known
as issue of marriage .
Legitimacy: It is the situation in which a mother and father are married to each
other at the time of their child’s birth, were married during gestation, or were
married subsequently.
Illegitimacy: It is the situation in which a mother and father are not married to
each other at the time of their child’s birth, were not married during gestation,
and were not married subsequently.
Parentage: means being a parent.
Paternity: a parent–child relationship, is the quality of being a parent and the
establishment of parentage. Paternity is, usually, the establishment of a particular
man as the natural father of a child or, occasionally, the establishment of a
particular woman as the natural mother of a child.
Paternity action / paternity proceeding ,/paternity suit : a proceeding or
lawsuit to establish parentage, or not. It is, usually, a proceeding or lawsuit to
establish a particular man as the natural father of a child, or not. It is,
occasionally, a proceeding or lawsuit to establish a particular woman as the
natural mother of a child, or not.
Paternity test: It is evidence of paternity from a comparison of the blood and/or
genes of the alleged parent and the child.
Putative: Putative means alleged or supposed. A putative father or alleged father
is a man alleged or supposed to be a child’s father.
Surrogate: a surrogate is a person who acts for another. A surrogate parent is not
a parent but a person who acts as a parent for the parent.
In loco parentis: is the status of a person or entity who acts as a parent for the
parent such as a babysitter, teacher, or school.
Adopt: It is to accept something not originally your own as your own and to
accept a child not originally your own as your own.
Adoption: Adoption is the process by which a person who is not a person’s
natural parent becomes the person’s
Legal parent: A legal parent is another, not the natural parent of a person,
granted parental rights over the person. An
Adoptive father: is a man who becomes a person’s legal parent.
Adoptive mother: is a woman who becomes a person’s legal parent.
Adoptee: adoptee is a person who has a legal parent and a person who has been
adopted.
Adopted child : child is a minor who has a legal parent and a minor who has
been adopted.
Foster child: is a minor child not raised by the minor child’s natural or adoptive
parents.
Foster parent: is a person not the natural or adoptive parent of a minor child
who raises the minor child and a person court appointed, usually temporarily, to
raise another person’s minor child.
Minor/Juvenile: a natural person who has not reached the age of majority or a
child who has not reached the age of majority.
Emancipated: the person is freed from the control of another. In family law, a
minor is emancipated when the minor is freed from parental control and
responsibility. A minor is automatically emancipated from parental control when
the minor becomes an adult.
Juvenile delinquency: refers to minors committing serious criminal acts. Thus,
a juvenile delinquent or juvenile offender is a minor who has committed a serious
criminal act. Juvenile delinquency is often the result of child abuse and neglect.

LEGAL TERMS -6
Annulment of marriage: annulment is the voiding of a marriage, the proceeding
to declare that an apparent marriage is void because the parties were not validly
married.
Putative marriage: is an alleged or supposed marriage that may be valid or
void.
Purported marriage: is an alleged or supposed marriage hat is void.
Nonage: A person who is unemancipated, and below the age of consent must
obtain parental consent to marry.
Solemnize: to perform a formal ceremony to make something official.
Ceremonial marriage: It is a solemnized marriage.
Civil Ceremony: It is a wedding before an authorized representative of the state
such as Marriage Registrar.
Religious Ceremony: It is a wedding before a religious leader who also serves
as the representative of the state.
Sham marriage: a marriage as a part of jest or joke, for pretend, or for some
illegal purpose, is void.
Shotgun marriage: a purported marriage as the result of force or the threat of
force, is void.
Common law marriage : a marriage not based upon a formal ceremony, but
based upon a man and a woman, each competent to marry, agreeing to cohabitate
as if married, holding themselves out as being married, and regarded by others as
being married.
Consortium: The main civil benefit of marriage is consortium , which is the
right to the companionship, cooperation, affection, and aid of the spouse,
including conjugal rights.
Conjugal rights: are the rights of spouses from the status of marriage, including
a confidential intimate relationship, joint property rights, legal cohabitation, and
legal sexual relations.
Loss of Consortium : It is the absence or removal of the companionship,
cooperation, affection, and aid of a spouse. When a person’s spouse is injured or
killed, the person may be able to sue and collect damages for loss of consortium.
Support: to furnish the money or means needed to meet a person’s basic needs
or to provide for a person’s basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter.
Spousal privilege or marital communications privilege or marital privilege
or husband-wife privilege: is the privilege held by each spouse, except in legal
actions between them, to refuse to disclose confidential communications between
them during a legal marriage. The privilege encourages communication and
confidence between spouses.
Divorce/Dissolution: is the termination of a valid marriage
Absolute divorce: the termination of a valid marriage for a fault or ground
arising during the marriage itself.
Contested divorce: Defence is raised
Uncontested divorce: No defence is raised
A decree of divorce: is the formal judgment declaring that a valid marriage is
terminated, how the court has decided that the spouses’ property rights will be
divided, and how the court has decided that the minor children of their marriage,
if any, will be cared for.
Desertion: law, the unjustified cessation of cohabitation with your spouse or,
generally, the abandonment of marital duties.
Enoch Arden law: is a law that provides as a ground for divorce the unexplained
absence of a spouse for a long and continuous period of years. A common ground
for divorce was and is nonsupport , which is the willful failure to provide for the
basic needs of a spouse or a minor child. Nonsupport is also the crime of
willfully failing to provide for the basic needs of a spouse, a minor child,or a
person under your care.
Recrimination: It is pointing out in equity the wrongs of the accuser.
Connivance: It is secret cooperation in an illegal act and the common-law
defense to a divorce that the spouse seeking the divorce fraudulently consented to
conduct alleged to be a ground for divorce.
No-fault divorce: meaning divorce for a ground not based on the fault of one of
the spouses. For example, a no-fault ground for divorce might be incompatibility,
irreconcilable differences , irremedial breakdown of marriage, irretrievable
breakdown , or living separate and apart for one year , regardless of the reason
why.
Alimony or permanent alimony: now more commonly referred to as spousal
support , is money or property paid by one spouse to the other spouse for the
financial support of that spouse after the termination of their marriage or during a
legal separation.
Temporary alimony or alimony pendente lite: now more commonly referred to
as temporary spousal support or spousal support pendente lite , is money or
property paid by one spouse to the other spouse or the financial support of that
spouse during the time an action to terminate their marriage, or for legal
separation, is pending in court.