Buleran Kinship Structure

Bulerans are a androgynous race with all members being of the same sex and able to be both pregnant and to impregnate another.  This, of course, has affected how families and kinship are structured, with birth parents and their family being most important.

Households are typically multigenerational and built around a single lineage, with no inlaws to speak of living in the home.

Buleran Visiting Marriages

A Buleran visiting marriage is a term used to describe intimate romantic relationship between two Bulera, similar to other cultures ideas of romantic/sexual partnerships, with the couple living separately, with their birth families. 

These relationships can be long term or merely short term, with long-term relationships often being a basis for families working together as allies. The short term marriages are seen as a bit more juvenile and include less social entanglement. 

To dissolve a relationship the couple must simply stop seeing each other, and stop acknowledging their special relationship. There are no legal or social expectations for alimony or any sort of compensation for the dissolving relationship; these are often seen as private matters between the individuals.

Occasionally, Buleran couples will move out of their parents homes and form their own nuclear family -an act becoming more common in the modern era- but this is not seen as traditional and often is seen as an abandonment of one’s parents and birth family.

Parents

For more information of childrearing see: Buleran Pregnancy & Infanthood

Any children that come from Buleran traditional visiting relationships are considered to be of the family of the birthing parent. 

The other parent, called the sire parent, may be involved in the child's life, most often in the form of a benefactor that supports the child monetarily, but rarely are they a guardian in the child’s life and there is no social or legal obligation. The sire parent is often not even considered a parent, only acknowledged for their biological relationship.

The birthing parent is the parent who takes on all of the legal and social obligations for the child. The birthing parents -and others with the parental role- are expected to have more of a disciplinary role with the children, while grandparents and cousins take on more of the fun roles.

Children

Children are expected to live with their birth parent and extended family, and typically will stay in this multigenerational household for life. Parents take care of their children, as well as their siblings' children, and this care is expected to be recuperated in the future with the younger family members taking care of the elders.

Grandparents

Grandparents are often the caretakers of children when the parents are busy, and oftentimes take on more of a joking playful role with the child. Grandparents are often seen as the more permissive adults in the household, with parents having more of a disciplinary role.

Grandparents include not only the birth parent’s birth parent -the biological grandparent- but also the bio-grandparent's siblings, due to how parent’s siblings are seen as parents.

Siblings & Cousins

Siblings and cousins have very similar roles with cousins being seen as siblings. This is due to parents and parents siblings all being seen as parents, and thus all the children are siblings.

Siblings take on roles very similar to in other cultures, with siblings being expected to back each other up as well as being close companions in childhood. Older siblings

Due to parents and parent’s siblings taking on the same parental role, cousins and siblings are seen as the same, resulting in cousins being treated as siblings.

Parent’s Siblings

Families often include some close extended family members of siblings and siblings children, meaning that children are raised among many of their cousins, specifically those on their birth family’s side.

The siblings of birth parents also take part in the raising of children, with children often being raised communally by all the adults in their parents' generation taking part in raising the children. 

This all results in children seeing their cousins more like siblings and their parents siblings as their own parents. This results in an authority figure role for the parent’s siblings and a fun companion role for cousins, similar to the roles taken on by parents and siblings respectively.

Extended Family

Extended families include branches of the family that have broken off from their original household, creating their own with their children and descendants. This splitting off is often due to financial stresses and work opportunities, but family fall outs may also be a cause.

The members of these family branches have different terms to talk about members that, had, the house not split would have been considered parents or siblings. The terms used for these family members are often translated to cousin and parent’s siblings (or another gender neutral term for aunt or uncle).

These branches as a whole are often called cousin or cadet branches, with the original house being referred to as the head family or the parent branch. All the different branches as a whole become known as a clan, with the members sharing the family name, genealogy and sometimes property.

This  extended family of the clan allows for a kinship based social network that will help when members and branches need backing or support. Clans typically will have a record of all the clan members, especially the more prestigious members.