One of my younger brothers got married last week.  My own immediate family, my brothers and sister with their families and a number of my cousins attended.

It was a fabulous celebration, as well (for me any way), a family reunion of sorts.

The event got me thinking about family ties.  In essence “family ties” are a way of describing a type of interpersonal relationships.  That is a group of people you know; like friends, colleagues and so on.

Whats Different?

The key attribute to family relationships is some kind of bloodline association.  The more direct the “blood” tie, the closer the relationship.

The exception to this would be family relationships created through marriage (so no direct bloodline).  This can expand your family grouping to people without a direct connection to your genes.

As your family grows, through birth and marriage many become separated by physical distances but the defined ties, (marriage or bloodline) usually remain strong.

As a result, an occasional gathering of the clan (so to speak) from near and far can be a lot of fun.

Given the family relationships are defined by blood or marriage you don’t get to choose your immediate family (except your spouse) so sometimes these gatherings can have some friction.

Fortunately, for both for my immediate and extended family there are no obvious rifts.  Everbody gets along (largely) and overall it seems we genuinely like each other.

As a result our accidental reunion was a lot of fun.  Thanks bro.