... questions 'about the types of relationships that Scottish law should recognise as family relationships that are worthy of protection and promotion'3. In Peter Duckworth's article he compares the family to a 'proverbial elephant', 'easy to recognise but difficult to define'4 and this idea is further exemplified in Child and Family Law5 which elaborates on the idea that 'the term (family) is capable of definition at various different levels' but 'it is a great deal easier to reject suggested definitions than to accept any one universally'6. This recurring idea of a family definition being somewhat in limbo, has extended throughout academic literature and even some would say that an 'essential dichotomy surrounds the notion'7. Geraldine Van Bueren describes the family in her article as being 'conceptualised both as a cohesive association of autonomous people and as a group of individuals subject to a higher law that protects competing claims'.8 Yet as ...

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