in law, a blood relationship between people. The law links the existence, change, and cessation of rights and duties to consanguinity.
In the USSR both lineal consanguinity (for example, father-son or grandmother-granddaughter) and collateral consanguinity, where the relationships arise owing to a common forebear (for example, brother-sister or uncle-nephew), are of legal significance. Lineal consanguinity may be ascending (from the descendants to the forebears) or descending (from the forebears to the descendants). Brothers and sisters are of the whole blood if they have the same mother and father, and they are half blood if they have either the same mother (uterine siblings) or the same father (consanguinean siblings). The distinction, however, does not affect the legal relations between brothers and sisters; for example, a brother and sister may not marry regardless of whether the kinship is whole blood or half blood.
Consanguinity is expressed in degrees indicating the closeness of the blood ties between relatives. Parents and children are in the first degree, brothers and sisters in the second degree, and so on. Relations between a parent and an adopted child are legally consanguineal. The relationships between spouses are not consanguineal.
In every instance the law defines the group of persons among whom consanguinity may have legal significance. The concept of consanguinity is applied most extensively in family law. In civil law, consanguineal relationships are the basis for settling inheritance questions, and in labor law, the granting of pensions upon the loss of a breadwinner depends on consanguinity. In addition, the law prohibits closely related persons from working together in the same organization if one relative is directly subordinate or responsible to the other.
In bourgeois law consanguineal relationships are regulated primarily by inheritance law.