Sunday, February 19, 2012

Out-Laws and In-Laws





An interesting divorce phenomenon is what happens when you like the spouse your sibling divorced more than the sibling’s new spouse. This may go beyond the ex-spouse to the ex-spouse’s relatives. I have come across this a few times but I never knew what to call it until last night when a person was introduced to me as my friend’s out-law. This is in contrast to being an in-law which is a person related by marriage. I guess you could also call the person an ex-law or former-law. Perhaps it would be more precise to say sister-out-law. I Goggled and came up with ironically a recent article in the Philipine Star at http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=778591&publicationSubCategoryId=85 . More often than not the reference is to an outlaw or criminal. I still like the term out-law. The relationship does create some sibling problems and certainly the new spouse is not overjoyed. This is especially the case when you like the first spouse more than the new spouse. However, I have actually seen a situation where the first wife and second wife get along and the mutual husband all get along.

I always like to include a picture with my blogs. I could not find an out-law or in-law picture I liked so I resorted to movie posters that were interesting. In this case three. First, I love Clint Eastwood so I picked The Outlaw Josey ‘Wa les. Second, I have always been fascinated by Howard Hughes and remember reading about the movie he made with Jane Russell, The Outlaw and finally why not the In-laws with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin.
 
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