Reflections on family pluralism.

Summary There is not one, but many ways of founding, living and undoing the family bond. Built around a child or a couple, married or not, heterosexual or homosexual, the family, hierarchical or egalitarian, sometimes polygamous, single-parent, nuclear or extended, united or disunited, separated, regrouped, recomposed... is declined in the plural. This family pluralism, which stems from the ideological, political, religious, cultural, and sometimes even economic conceptions of each person, is more than ever alive. It finds the causes of its development in the play of individual wills, the vicissitudes of family life and is amplified today in a context of increased circulation of people and information. It provides a very rich theme for reflection: what are the expressions of family pluralism and the difficulties it generates? What is the attitude of the law towards this phenomenon? Does it ignore it? Does it take it into consideration and in what way? How does it attempt to resolve the conflicts that family pluralism may give rise to at the domestic level as well as in transnational situations? The variety of laws considered (French, Belgian, Greek, British, Serbian, Italian, Indian and Malian) and of the questions considered reflect a conception of legal research that strives to promote a dialogue of cultures and to decompartmentalize approaches.