186 articles
Maria Rasputin
Maria Rasputin (Matryona Grigorievna Rasputina, 1898-1977), daughter of Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin; emigre memoirist, Paris cabaret dancer, and American circus lion tamer who wrote three books defending her father.
Marius Borg Høiby
Marius Borg Høiby, born 1997, is Queen Mette-Marit of Norway's eldest son and King Haakon's stepson, with no royal title. Convicted June 2026 of two rapes and abuse, sentenced to four years, now appealing to Borgarting Court of Appeal with retrial set for February 2027.
Marko Milošević
Marko Milošević (born 1974) is the son of Slobodan Milošević and Mirjana Marković, owner of Požarevac's Madonna club and Bambiland park, in Russian exile since 2000; distinct from his MP son and several footballers of the same name.
Mary Ingalls
Mary Ingalls (Mary Amelia Ingalls, born 1865, Pepin, Wisconsin) was Laura Ingalls Wilder's eldest sister, blinded at 14; the books blamed scarlet fever, but 2013 analysis points to viral meningoencephalitis. She graduated from the Iowa school for the blind and never married, unlike her TV character.
Matrilineality
Matrilineality: kinship descent, inheritance, and belonging traced through the female line (matriliny), as among the Minangkabau, Khasi, Mosuo, and Akan. Distinct from matriarchy; often paired with matrilocal or avunculocal residence and mother's-brother inheritance.
Megxit
Megxit is the informal blend of Meghan and exit, by analogy with Brexit, for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's January 2020 decision to step back as senior British royals, effective March 31, 2020, with HRH styles dropped and £2.4 million repaid.
Mewar family dispute
Mewar family dispute: inheritance conflict in the erstwhile royal family of Mewar, Udaipur, begun by Mahendra Singh's 1983 partition suit, decided in 2020, stayed in 2022, and now contested over Arvind Singh's 2025 will between Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar and his sisters.
Mitford family
Mitford family: English aristocratic family of the Barons Redesdale, famous for six sisters (Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, Deborah) whose politics ranged from fascism to communism, plus novelist Nancy's books and the Chatsworth connection.
Mohamed Bzeek
Mohamed Bzeek, Libyan-born Muslim foster father in Azusa, California, has cared for over 80 terminally ill children in Los Angeles County since 1989, burying about 10, as the county's only such foster parent.
Musk family
Musk family: South African-Canadian-American family known through Elon Musk; parents Errol and Maye, siblings Kimbal and Tosca, 14 reported children; Pretoria origins, 1979 divorce, 1988 emigration.
Najwa Ghanem
Najwa Ghanem (نجوى غانم), Syrian first wife and first cousin of Osama bin Laden, married 1974, mother of 11, left him before 9/11, co-authored the 2009 memoir Growing Up bin Laden.
Nancy Lincoln
Nancy Hanks Lincoln (1784-1818), mother of President Abraham Lincoln, Kentucky pioneer wife of Thomas Lincoln, died of milk sickness in Spencer County, Indiana, and is buried at Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial.
Nanny
Nanny: a childcare worker employed by a family to care for children in the child's own home, live-in or live-out. Also nursery nurse; distinct from au pair (cultural exchange, 45-hour cap) and daycare. History from wet nursing; Ofsted registration in England; US weekly cost $694 (2021).
Next of kin
Next of kin means the people with the nearest legally acknowledged relation to someone, notified after death and often asked to make basic decisions on their behalf.
Niece and nephew
Niece and nephew are English kinship terms for a sibling's daughter and son, from Latin neptis and nepos via Old French; both once meant grandchild before narrowing in the 1600s; second-degree relatives sharing about 25% of DNA; gender-neutral term nibling.
Nuclear family
The nuclear family, also known as a conjugal or elementary family, is a family unit of one or two parents and their children, the smallest family structure.
Only child
Only child: a person raised without siblings. Covers definitions and measurement, EU and UK prevalence, outcome research from Polit and Falbo onward, and China's one-child policy cohort.
Orphan
Orphan: a child under 18 who has lost one parent (single orphan) or both parents (double orphan). Covers UNICEF definitions, AIDS-related orphanhood, the history of orphanages, and research comparing institutional and family-based care.
Orphan Train
The Orphan Train Movement relocated roughly 150,000 to 250,000 poor New York children to rural families in the Midwest and West between 1854 and 1929, pioneering American foster care.
Orphanage
Orphanage, also called residential or institutional care, is a facility where children separated from parents live under paid staff. About 2 million children live in such care worldwide, most with living relatives; institutionalization harms development, driving deinstitutionalization toward kinship and foster care.
Outline of relationships
The outline of relationships, also called a topic outline of relationships, surveys the main types of human relationships, how they form and end, and the theories explaining them.
Parasite single
Parasite single (パラサイトシングル) is a Japanese pejorative for unmarried adults living off their parents' household, coined by sociologist Masahiro Yamada in 1997 and popularized by his 1999 book.
Parent-in-law
Parent-in-law: the father-in-law or mother-in-law, the parent of one's spouse. An affinal (marriage-created) kin relation, traced etymologically to Canon Law via brother-in-law (13c.) and PIE swekuros.
Parental alienation
Parental alienation: proposed dynamic where a child unjustifiably rejects a parent, coined as PAS by Richard Gardner in 1985; excluded from ICD-11 and DSM, scientifically contested, and widely criticized as misused in custody disputes.
Parenting
Parenting, also called child-rearing, is providing nurturing care to children by parents or other caregivers. Key facts: four parenting styles with authoritative favored, harsh discipline prevalence, WHO and UNICEF support programmes, digital-age challenges.
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (1963) was the third child of President John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, born five and a half weeks premature at Otis AFB and died of respiratory distress syndrome at 39 hours; his death spurred surfactant research.
Philippine kinship
Philippine kinship, the bilateral (cognatic) family reckoning system of the Philippines, also called Malayan-type kinship. Descent traced equally through both parents; generation-based, weakly sex-differentiated terminology; compadrazgo godparenthood; regional variation including segmentary lineal-like organization in the Islamic south.
Private household
A private household is a person living alone or a group sharing a dwelling and providing for their own everyday needs, as distinct from institutions like prisons or hospitals.
Push present
Push present (push gift, birthing present): a gift given to a new mother or birthing parent, typically jewelry from her partner, around the time of birth; distinct from baby shower gifts, term first recorded on Fox News in 2003.
Randolph McCoy
Randolph "Old Ranel" McCoy (1825-1914), Pike County, Kentucky patriarch of the McCoy clan in the Hatfield-McCoy feud; lost five children, home burned 1888, died by cooking-fire burns.