Fam. Code, § 7601 · Chapter 1. General Provisions
Fam. Code, § 7601
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) “Natural parent” as used in this code means a nonadoptive parent established under this part, whether biologically related to the child or not.
(b) “Parent and child relationship” as used in this part means the legal relationship existing between a child and the child’s natural or adoptive parents incident to which the law confers or imposes rights, privileges, duties, and obligations. The term includes the mother and child relationship and the father and child relationship.
(c) This part does not preclude a finding that a child has a parent and child relationship with more than two parents.
(d) For purposes of state law, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law, and any other provision or source of law governing the rights, protections, benefits, responsibilities, obligations, and duties of parents, any reference to two parents shall be interpreted to apply to every parent of a child where that child has been found to have more than two parents under this part.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2013, Ch. 564, Sec. 5.5. (SB 274) Effective January 1, 2014.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAM§ionNum=7601.
- Text hash
- sha256 4a7fe0bc696eaf2fb6e4680cffc4c73c119ef61b8315a40c47ecca0e3eab2606
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
Cited by 2 provisions
Provisions in this library whose text cites Fam. Code, § 7601. Each shows the citation as that text prints it.
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.