Question ... is your spouse's sibling's spouse ... technically your in-law?

[Hugh_Lebowski]

Say, I marry Becky.

Becky has a sister, Teresa.

Clearly Teresa is my SIL.

Teresa is married to Jason.

Is Jason also my BIL?

I'm thinking yes ... but then ... I'm not entirely positive.

What say you, DU?

[Harker]

1. Depends upon whether you like Jason.

My wife's sisters' husbands are no brothers to me.

P.S. My parents had another child who is not my brother, either.

[Luciferous]

4. 😄

[Harker]

5. It gets a little complicated sometimes.

Then again, my parents' siblings' spouses were both uncles to me.

[Luciferous]

9. Believe me, I know. My brother-in-law's

wife is something else.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

2. Yes.

[yonder]

3. I saw that other thread and couldn't quite get it either.

Technically, I’d say Jason is not your BIL but for the sake of convenient convention, I would call Jason my BIL.

At least that's how I think of, and sometimes refer to the dudes married to each of my wife's sisters.

[Harker]

6. I refer to my wife's brothers-in-law as...

"that dipshit in the Trump shirt" and "that Nazi gun nut" respectively.

[yonder]

11. I'm somewhat luckier in that respect.

The wealthier one is jerkier by far, the other is gun nutty but a decent chap. Neither are tfg/maga supporters though I’m not sure reliably in our camp.

[Harker]

14. Agreed.

I'd settle for some ambiguity.

[Irish_Dem]

7. Yes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibling-in-law#:~:text=A%20sibling%2Din%2Dlaw%20is,law%20for%20a%20female%20one.

[yonder]

12. That's helpful.

[Metaphorical]

8. Yes, but weakly

Teresa's children share Becky's genetics (your children with Becky would be Teresa's children's first cousins). Jason is related to Teresa by marriage, so only indirectly share common genetics, so technically he is your brother-in-law by marriage (denoting the outer partner). The term once removed is a little different: if Teresa's children had grandchildren, those children would be cousins once removed to Becky, while Teresa's grandchildren are second cousins to Becky's grandchildren.

Another way of thinking about it is that first cousins are related through the grandparent (2 up and 2 down), second cousins are related through the great grandparent (3 up and 3 down), while first cousins once removed would be 2 up and 1 down and second cousins once removed would be 3 up and 1 down and second cousins once removed would be 3 up and 2 down.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

10. But is 'brother in law by marriage' really a 'thing'?

Or is it just a 'brother in law'. Or is it NOT a 'brother in law'?

I totally understand how '2nd cousin', and 'first cousin once-removed', etc ... work in terms of the nomenclature and generational hierarchies. Your parent's cousins are YOUR first cousins once-removed. And your first cousin's children are also your first cousin once-removed (because those are fundamentally the same relationship and all cousinships, if you will, are named identically for both parties).

But cousins are a totally different matter from my question at hand

[Irish_Dem]

13. It is indicating a close legal family relationship, but not related by blood.

I have done genealogy for over 20 years and have never heard of the term "brother in law by marriage"
"In Laws" are usually obtained via a marriage! So it is redundant.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

15. I'm specifically referring to the use of term 'brother-in-law'

Obviously Teresa would be my 'sister-in-law', but would her husband be properly called my BIL cause he's married to Teresa?

He's not even blood-related to my wife (though Jason is HER BIL, in this theoretical case), so ... this is my question, what's the definition say?

[Irish_Dem]

20. Again here is the answer

Sibling-in-law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A sibling-in-law is the spouse of one's sibling, or the sibling of one's spouse, or the person who is married to the sibling of one's spouse.

More commonly, a sibling-in-law is referred to as a brother-in-law for a male sibling-in-law, and a sister-in-law for a female one.

Sibling-in-law also refers to the reciprocal relationship between a person's spouse and their sibling's spouse. In Indian English this can be referred to as a co-sibling (specifically a co-sister, for the wife of one's sibling-in-law,[2] or co-brother, for the husband of one's sibling-in-law[3]).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibling-in-law#:~:text=A%20sibling%2Din%2Dlaw%20is,law%20for%20a%20female%20one.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

21. Well, thanks. I missed that the first time :) (nt)

[NNadir]

16. I refer to my wife's sister's husband as my brother-in-law. I do so as well for my other...

...sister's in law ex-husband.

I don't know how my wife regards any of my brother's wives. We really only knew one of them, and we don't talk to my brother, although we do from time to time see his first ex-wife, who I still call my sister-in-law.

There's probably no "correct" way to do this. I suspect it is a function of how you feel about the person.

[Tikki]

17. My husband's mother had a sister who was married to my husband's father's brother.

They always say that these couples' children are closer related than cousins.

Tikki

[Hugh_Lebowski]

19. And I think they're right in that particular case, though the % is not terribly different.

If I recall correctly from memory, using rough numbers, both your parents and your siblings are 50% the same as you (aside from identical twins).

Your biological aunt/uncle is 25% the same as you.

Your first cousin is (generally) 12.5% the same as you, but that presupposes that either the father or mother of said cousin is not also biologically related to you.

Transferring the situation over to you rather than your husband, for the sake of argument, in the scenario you describe, both parents of your cousins are genetically related to you, ergo, your cousins from that coupling would in fact be higher than 12.5% 'the same', though I'm not sure exactly how much it's by.

But it is true, they would be closer than regular cousins, genetically.

And old rules of peerage and property ownership/inheritance would've accounted for this, cousins with this sort of relationship would've had 'priority' over regular cousins.

Because it was not at all uncommon back in the day.

[Tikki]

22. Thanks for the explanation..it was always a smile at family reunions.

Also, our oldest son and my husband's cousin's daughter looked so much alike at a certain age it was uncanny.


The Tikkis

[Yavin4]

18. Depends on the kind of TV that Jason has.

It's the law. Look it up.