What does “tanquam soror vel tanquam frater” mean? It is a phrase from a legal case I am reading.
Hmm… Like sister or like brother? Something like that…
“as if [she were] a sister or as if [he were] a brother”. My guess is that whoever the phrase is referring to has the same legal status as a sibling. It could also be translated “such as a sister or such as a brother,” more in the sense of “for example,” though other Latin phrases such as “e.g.” are used more in that context. ETA: Half Man Half Wit’s translation is also correct, word for word, but again I’d expect similis or something like it if that’s the meaning that was intended.
Further maybe-related info: In Ecclesiastical Law, an adult man and woman living together, but not sexually active (whether married, common-law married, or unmarried), is said to be living ‘as sister and brother.’
Living as (or like) brother and sister is a term used in some Christian circles to refer to what can happen when a romantic couple is in a situation where their relationship is not accepted by their church or the church they want to join and they decide they need to fix it or the church demands that they fix it. Ideally, it’s supposed to be a temporary thing while the couple either regularizes their relationship in the eyes of the church (e.g. by getting married in a manner recognized by the church as valid or by getting previous marriages annulled) and resumes living as they were before, or splits up permanently. This can happen in some churches where a person has gotten divorced and then remarried someone else and the church does not recognize the remarriage or requires that certain things be proven about the previous relationship to make the second marriage acceptable. Catholics have a huge body of ecclesiastical law on this, going into painful detail what the requirements for a valid marriage are and how the presence or non-presence of those elements can be adjudicated in ecclesiastical court. If the requirements for a valid marriage were not met and it is proven so, you have the option of splitting up and marrying other people or fixing the relationship with a ritual or rituals or whatnot.