Stepparent and child - Keishinshi

The relationship between the child of a husband's first wife and his second wife, or the child of a wife's first husband and her second husband, is called a stepparent (mother or father)-child relationship. Under the Meiji Civil Code, if stepparents and children belonged to the same family, they were naturally recognized as having a legal parent-child relationship. Originally based on the family system, this treatment was abolished with the revision of the Civil Code in 1948 (Showa 23), and nowadays it is merely a relationship of incest and first degree kinship. Therefore, stepchildren are not subject to the parental authority of their stepparents, and have no inheritance rights. However, because they are related by direct lineage through incest, they cannot marry (Civil Code Article 735), and in special circumstances, they are obligated to support the stepchild (Civil Code Article 877, Paragraph 2). There are also an increasing number of cases where stepparents (especially stepfathers) adopt their stepchildren (children by their wife), and in such cases, the stepchildren have a kinship relationship with the stepparents' relatives as well. The relationship between a legitimate mother and her illegitimate child under the Meiji Civil Code was also a kind of stepmother-child relationship.

[Masanori Yamamoto and Masamitsu Nozawa]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

夫の先妻の子と後妻、あるいは、妻の先夫の子と後夫との関係を継親（母または父）子関係という。明治民法の下では、継親子が同じ家に属していた場合には、その間に当然法律上の親子関係を認めていた。もともと家族制度に基づくものであり、1948年（昭和23）の民法改正によりこの取扱いは廃止され、現在では単なる姻族1親等の関係にとどまっている。したがって、継子は継親の親権に服さず、相続権もない。ただ直系姻族の関係にあるため婚姻することはできず（民法735条）、特別の事情がある場合には扶養の義務を負う（同法877条2項）。継親（ことに継父）が継子（妻の連れ子）を養子とする例も増えており、そうすれば、継子は継親の親族との間にも親族関係を有することとなる。明治民法下の嫡母庶子関係も、一種の継母子関係であった。

［山本正憲・野澤正充］

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