In short
Book Two opens by saying what it is for. Article 362 defines family juridical relations as the set of reciprocal rights and obligations of the family’s members. Article 363 warns that those norms are of public order and social interest, and are aimed at protecting the person’s integral development in the family setting. Article 364 gives the content: family members have reciprocally the right and the duty to respect, protect and succour one another and to provide for the lifting of family burdens, in the measure of their possibilities, economic resources and personal aptitudes. Then kinship enters. Article 365 defines it as the juridical relation between two or more persons united by blood ties, genetic tie, or by disposition of the law, and adds something worth keeping: these norms govern in every matter the law regulates, not only in family law. Article 366 explains consanguinity by the common trunk. Article 367 is the one most people need: adoption creates kinship equivalent to consanguinity between the adoptee and the adopter, between the adoptee and all the adopter’s consanguineous relatives, between the adopter and the adoptee’s descendants, and among all persons adopted by the same person. Article 368 creates kinship by affinity through marriage — between each spouse and the other’s consanguineous relatives, in the direct and collateral line — and warns that dissolving the marriage ends it, save where the law provides otherwise. And Article 369 cuts off a very common confusion: affinity produces no juridical tie between one spouse’s blood relatives and the other’s. The two sets of in-laws are not related to each other.
What is it?
They are Articles 362 to 369 of the Civil Code of 2020: what duties family members owe one another and who is related to whom, by blood, adoption or marriage.
Who can do it?
Anyone needing to know whether another person is their relative and of what kind: to inherit, to marry, for a procedure or for a legal bar.
Requirements
- Family members have reciprocally the right and duty to respect, protect and succour one another.Verified against the official source
- Also to provide for family burdens, in the measure of their possibilities, economic resources and personal aptitudes.Verified against the official source
- Kinship is the juridical relation between persons united by blood ties, genetic tie, or by disposition of the law.Verified against the official source
- The norms on kinship govern in every matter the law regulates.Verified against the official source
- Adoption creates kinship equivalent to consanguinity with the adopter, all their blood relatives, the adoptee’s descendants, and among co-adoptees.Verified against the official source
- Marriage creates affinity between each spouse and the other’s blood relatives, in the direct and collateral line.Verified against the official source
- Dissolving the marriage ends kinship by affinity, save where the law provides otherwise.Verified against the official source
- Affinity produces no juridical tie between one spouse’s blood relatives and the other’s.Verified against the official source
Documents you need
Cost
Step by step
Step 1: See where the tie comes from
Article 365: by blood ties, by genetic tie, or by disposition of the law.
Step 2: Look for the common trunk
Article 366: consanguinity unites those descending from the same ascendant or common trunk.
Step 3: Adoption counts as blood
Article 367: it creates kinship equivalent to consanguinity, reaching the adopter’s whole family.
Step 4: And among co-adoptees
The same article includes all persons adopted by the same person.
Step 5: Marriage creates affinity
Article 368: between each spouse and the other’s blood relatives, direct and collateral.
Step 6: And divorce ends it
Same article: dissolving the marriage ends affinity, unless the law says otherwise.
Step 7: The two families are not related
Article 369: affinity produces no tie between one spouse’s blood relatives and the other’s.
Where to do it
These eight articles describe no procedure before any agency. The Code does not define here who counts as a family member for Article 364’s duties, nor say how those duties are enforced or before whom. Article 367 admits the law may impose special prohibitions on adoptive filiation, different from consanguineous ones, and names none. And Article 368 saves the cases where the law keeps affinity alive after the marriage is dissolved, without listing them. The court adoption process and the divorce process have their own guides on this site. None of those gaps is filled here.
How long it takes
What to do if something goes wrong
The question that most often needs answering here is not sentimental but practical: whether this person is my relative and of what kind, because inheritances, marriage bars, presumptions of creditor fraud, disqualifications in proceedings and a long list of consequences depend on it. Article 365 says it plainly: the norms on kinship govern in every matter the law regulates, so this definition does not stay inside family law. Three points decide almost every case. The first is adoption: Article 367 does not create a second-class tie but kinship equivalent to consanguinity, and not only with the adopter but with all their blood relatives, with the adoptee’s descendants, and among all persons adopted by the same person. The second is affinity: marriage makes you a relative by affinity of your spouse’s blood relatives, in the direct and collateral line, but Article 368 says dissolving the marriage ends that kinship save where the law provides otherwise. That is, after divorce they stop being relatives, with whatever exceptions other laws may keep and this article does not list. The third cuts off a confusion that recurs in families: Article 369 says affinity produces no juridical tie between one spouse’s blood relatives and the other’s. His parents and her parents are not related to each other for the Code, however many grandchildren they share. And about Article 364’s duties — to respect, protect and succour one another and provide for family burdens — it is worth knowing the article states them and grades them by each person’s possibilities, resources and aptitudes, but does not say here how they are enforced. MiPRFácil does not represent anyone in court and gives no legal advice.
Common mistakes
- Believing you stay a relative of the ex-spouse’s family: Article 368 ends affinity on dissolution.
- Thinking the two sets of in-laws are related: Article 369 says there is no tie between the families.
- Treating adoptive kinship as lesser: Article 367 makes it equivalent to consanguinity.
- Limiting adoptive kinship to the adopter: it reaches all their blood relatives.
- Forgetting that persons adopted by the same person are related to each other.
- Believing these rules serve only family law: they govern every matter the law regulates.
- Looking in Article 367 for the special bars on adoptive filiation: it names none.
- Expecting Article 364 to say how family duties are enforced: it states them and enforces nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Am I still related to my in-laws after divorce?
Article 368 says dissolving the marriage ends kinship by affinity, save where the law provides otherwise.
Are the two in-law families related to each other?
No. Article 369 says affinity produces no juridical tie between one spouse’s blood relatives and the other’s.
With whom does adoption create kinship?
Article 367 creates it with the adopter, all their blood relatives, the adoptee’s descendants, and among co-adoptees.
Do these rules apply only to family matters?
No. Article 365 says the norms on kinship govern in every matter the law regulates.
Official sources
These are the government pages this guide is based on.
- Poder Judicial de Puerto Rico
Poder Judicial
bvirtualogp.pr.gov
Last verified
September 12, 2026
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In the collateral line you climb to the common trunk and then count back down
Article 374 of the Civil Code of 2020 counts one grade per generation up to the common ancestor and one per generation coming back down.
How to adopt in Puerto Rico: requirements and court process
The three requirements, who can adopt, the Family Department’s REVA registry, and whether it is a petition or a complaint.
Who owes support to whom in your family
Spouses, ascendants, descendants and siblings owe each other, in that order and with rules of their own.
With no will, the children and the spouse inherit in equal parts
Article 1721 of the Civil Code of 2020 says so, and 1719 opens intestate succession also when the will is ineffective or insufficient.
How to get divorced in Puerto Rico: court or notary
The two grounds, the notarial divorce, the free OAT forms, and the $90 or $78 in stamps the Judiciary publishes.
The Code imposes no wait between a dissolved marriage and the next one
Article 383 of the Civil Code of 2020 leaves former spouses fit to formalise a new marriage once the tie is dissolved by any cause.