We all know the “In-law” ladder. Why are the parents of marriage not included ?
If my daughter where to marry, and her new husband’s Father wants to have a beer with me, I say…
Cool, (insert name) wants to have a beer with me.
Now if I tell this story at work I will say that (insert name) wanted to have a beer with me. and have to add for those who don’t know that (insert name) is the father of my daughter’s husband.
Just to say my “in-law” leaves it open to include other males in his family, no?
Korean has all sorts of titles for in-laws. What a woman calls her husband’s parents is different from what her husband calls her parents, and the respective parents call each other something different altogether.
I find that English is pretty vague when it comes to family titles. Y’all don’t even differentiate between whether your aunt is your mother’s sister or your dad’s sister or your dad’s brother’s wife or … you get the idea. Korean has a different title for all of them.
People seem to get confused enough about what the difference is between a second cousin or a first cousin once removed - add more titles for relations and it’d be chaos.
Yes, we’ve had similar questions before about cousins, in-laws…
In Spanish, some of the people who are related through marriage, but not involved in that marriage, are con-(another word which would indicate a relationship with one of the married parties). “Con” means “with”.
My mother would be my husband’s suegra; my husband’s mother would be my suegra; the two mothers would be consuegras - they graduated from madres to suegras at the same wedding. My brother is married: I am his wife’s cuñada, and the concuñada of the wife’s brother (who is my brother’s cuñado, and my concuñado).
On the other hand, my brother’s father-in-law (suegro) doesn’t get a special name when I speak about him, I refer to him as either my brother’s father-in-law or my sister-in-law’s father.
Dutch is even less specific, it doesn’t distinguish between cousins and nieces and nephews. The kids of your siblings and the kids of your parents’ siblings are all nicht and neef.
Just a thought, but looking at it historically, could it be because there’s no level of consanguinity involved? I.e. it’s safe and legal to marry them.
