The Family as a Subject of Law

 

Law in the first instance should be the expression of social values in a determined community time and space. In this sense of ideas, it would be prolix that it would reflect the social values in such community and changed as equal to the cultural changes ¿but where do such changes come from?

According to the teaching, the family is an entity, that up until a certain point sets the course of its members for what it does to the activities they do, the social relationships they establish by doing those activities, as well as the different contributions or effects the family carries out during a child’s socialization process or its members.

Likewise, within the family functions, there is the protection of its members, the accommodation, and transmission of a given culture, among other obligations to be determined according to the legal system discussed for each case.

The Civil Code in Distrito Federal (now Mexico City) establishes in its article 138 quater that legal family relationships constitute a set of duties, rights, and obligations of the family members. On the other hand, the numeral 138 quintus determines that family legal relationships that generate duties, rights, and obligations arise between people linked by bonds of marriage, kinship or cohabitation.

Due to the foregoing, we can assure there are rights and duties derived from the different family relationships; an example is custody, which is the set of duties and rights related to the children. For practical purposes it would be the capacity to decide over them, represent them and take care of their goods. Usually, except for ill treatment or similar, parental authority will always be shared between the spouses.

Since we mentioned the subject of spouses, likewise obligations come out because of the marriage, which are among others, the duty to cohabit, and the existence of a conjugal address; the other marriage duties such as, nourishment, the patrimonial regime, assistance, help, mutual solidarity, and fidelity.

Having said that we can conclude that, if we start with the concept of “family”, we understand that is a social group that goes through a series of modifications according to the society where it develops, influenced by the values of such society and that, in a great measure, the big problems there is within society will affect the family and therefore humanity.

Like Villagómez Alvarado says, in Mexico, there are as many kinds of families as there are ethnic groups, social levels, geographic routes, and historical horizons. Like many studies have revealed, every family is a tiny republic (or monarchy, or dictatorship, or anarchy). Anyway, acknowledging these differences, we have to find formulas so that each one of these tiny principalities establishes and observes a conduct code that makes possible the full validation of human rights in our country. Because at the end, the family is a subject of law.