MULTIPARENTALITY AND ITS EFFECTS ON BRAZILIAN SUCCESSION LAW IN LIGHT OF THE 1988

Abstract

The 1988 Federal Constitution redefined the concept of family in Brazil by reinforcing the values of human dignity, equality, and liberty. It broke with the traditional model centered on marriage between a man and a woman to recognize stable unions, single-parent families, socio-affective parenthood, and multiparentality. This research, based on a bibliographic approach and jurisprudential analysis, demonstrates that parenthood has ceased to be based solely on biological criteria and is now guided by the principles of truthfulness and isonomy. Multiparentality, established as a legal phenomenon, allows for the recognition of multiple parents without hierarchy among relationships, reflecting both the child’s best interests and legal equality. In the realm of inheritance law, this entails the automatic extension of hereditary rights to all involved descendants and ascendants, in accordance with decisions by the Supreme Federal Court and statements of the Civil Law Journey, demonstrating the legal system’s capacity to accommodate the complexities of contemporary family configurations.