Family law is an area of law that relates to the creation, maintenance, and dissolution of relationships between individuals which are created by genetic relationship, marriage, and other legally recognized ways of forming a family.
Family relationships include:
- the relationship between parent and child
- the relationship between spouses in a marriage
The field of family law has also come to deal with relationships resembling those in the traditional family, but which are often not provided the same protections by the law, such as domestic partnerships.