Marriage

How to read it

Washburn University’s guide calls the horizontal line connecting two people marriage or coupling, and SAMHSA’s guide calls it the line connecting the two spouses. On the Multicultural Family Institute’s sheet it runs down from the square and the circle and across between them, with the date written as m 1970. The University of North Dakota’s guide writes the dates of marriage, separation and divorce beside the line, and connects each of the couple’s Children to it. Later events are marked on the same line: one slash for a Separation, two for a Divorce.

Also searched as: genogram marriage, marriage symbol, married genogram.

Married or living together

The line is solid for a marriage. A dashed line in the same place is a couple who live together without marrying, marked LT on the Institute’s sheet.

Couple lines in the medical pedigree

The National Society of Genetic Counselors’ pedigree also joins partners with a solid relationship line. In 2022 its task force considered making the line dotted, to match the dotted line it uses for non-biological ties such as adoption, and kept it solid because clinicians, medical records and pedigree software all use the solid line. In a pedigree, a double line between partners means they are related by blood (a consanguineous union). On a genogram, two parallel lines drawn straight between two people are a Close relationship relationship.