Sibling relationships: subjects’ constitution, and the establishment of social ties

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Fraternal relationship: Subjects' constitution and the formation of social ties

Relação fraterna: constituição do sujeito e formação do laço social

Relation fraternelle: constitution du sujet et formation du lien social

Relación fraterna: constitución del sujeto y formación del lazo social

Rebeca Goldsmid^I; Terezinha Féres-Carneiro^II

^Imáster in Clinical Psychology from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, PUC-Rio. Psychoanalyst from the Psychoanalysis Society Iracy Doyle. Mail address: Avenida Prefeito Dulcídio Cardoso 2500, bloco 2, apt. 705. Barra da Tijuca. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil. CEP 22631-902. E-mail address: [e-mail] Professor in the Psychology Department at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, PUC-Rio. Mail address: Rua General Góes Monteiro, 8, bloco D, apt. 2403. Botafogo. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil. CEP 22290-080. E-mail address: [e-mail]

ABSTRACT

Despite the relevance of siblings in the subject's constitution and the establishment of social ties, it has been only since the year 2000 that contemporary authors begin to show interest in the study of sibling relationships. Most of these studies, however, focus primarily on competition rather than on good quality coexistence and solidarity. In our theoretical review of contemporary authors – based on a psychoanalytic approach –, we conduct a study on sibling relationships in their companionship and solidarity aspects. We attest for the relevance of good quality of siblings' coexistence in both the constitution of the subject and the social ties. The theoretical discussion is illustrated by fragments of clinical cases.

Keywords: Sibling relationships. Sibling. Brotherhood. Constitution of the subject. Social ties

RESUMO

Apesar da importância do irmão na constituição do sujeito e na formação do laço social, somente por volta do ano 2000 os autores contemporâneos passaram a mostrar um interesse maior pelo estudo da relação fraterna. Grande parte desses estudos, entretanto, se dedica mais à competição e rivalidade do que à boa convivência e solidariedade. Em nossa revisão teórica, realizada na abordagem psicanalítica, de autores contemporâneos, fazemos um estudo da relação fraterna, em seus aspectos de solidariedade e de companheirismo. Constatamos a importância da boa convivência na fratria para a constituição do sujeito e do laço social. Ilustramos a discussão teórica com fragmentos de casos clínicos.

Palavras-chave: Função fraterna. Irmãos. Relação fraterna. Constituição do sujeito. Laço social

RÉSUMÉ

En dépit de l’importance de la fratrie dans la constitution du sujet et de la formation du lien social, ce n’est qu’autour de l’an 2000 que les auteurs contemporains ont manifesté un plus grand intérêt pour l’étude de la relation fraternelle. Ces études y sont toutefois soucieuses, pour la plupart d’entre elles, des rapports de compétition et de rivalité, plus que de ceux de convivance et de solidarité. Nous nous sommes attachés, quant à nous, dans notre révision théorique d’auteurs contemporains, relevant d’une approche psychanalytique, à réaliser une étude de la relation fraternelle, dans ses aspects de solidarité et de camaraderie. Nous y avons constaté l’importance de la bonne convivialté dans la fratrie pour la constitution du sujet et du lien social. Nous en avons illustré la discussion théorique par des fragments de cas cliniques.

Mots-clés: Fonction fraternelle. Frère. Relation fraternelle. Constitution du sujet. Lien social

RESUMEN

No obstante la importancia del hermano en la constitución del sujeto y en la formación del lazo social, solamente a partir del año 2000 los autores contemporáneos pasaron a demostrar un interés más grande por el estudio de la relación fraterna. Entretanto, gran parte de esos estudios se dedica más a la competición y rivalidad de que a la buena convivencia y solidariedad. En nuestra revisión teórica, realizada en el abordaje psicoanalítico de autores contemporáneos, hacemos un estudio de la relación fraterna en sus aspectos de solidariedad y de compañerismo. Constatamos la importancia de la buena convivencia en la fratría para la constitución del sujeto y del lazo social. Ilustramos la discusión teórica con fragmentos de casos clínicos.

Palabras-clave: Función fraterna. Hermano. Relación fraterna. Constitución del sujeto.Lazo social

The birth of a second child gives rise both to brotherhood and to intergenerational conflicts. The arrival of a sibling represents the arrival of an "alien" who disturbs with his presence the constituted stability.

One patient claims during a therapeutic session:

My mom tells me that when I was about to born, her uncles, who had no children and who loved my brother as if he was their child, said that he would lose his place for me. He did not accept me. I remember when we were children and young that he would not talk to me. Until today our relationship is very hard. He runs away from me as much as he can.

We do not choose our siblings, but we share with them our genetic heritage, family, social class, historical context, experiences and reminiscences probably for longer than with any other person. Fraternal relationship will constitute, in turn, into a complex net of feeling and emotions connected to cognitive, cultural and social elements intertwined and hard to separate. It starts usually during the individual's first infancy, and plays a fundamental role in determining his identity and personality characteristics. Rustin (2008) argues that in contemporary times the increase in life expectancy and the retraction of social assistance highlight the importance of siblings in sharing emotional, financial and practical responsibilities in caring for old parents who, in the case of scarce resources, become marginalized.

Brotherhood removes the first child from the unique and privileged place he used to occupy in the relationship of parents. Siblings play an important role in the subject's constitution, greater than the competition for the maternal/paternal love may suggest. Jealously has relevance in the constitution of personality: the other allows each sibling to better define him/herself through the perception of similarities and differences among them.

Two siblings aged three and two years-old are driving with their parents, each seated close to one of the windows. At one point in the path, one claims: "U. sees a car, V. doesn't see it". A little later the other says: "V. sees a baby, U. doesn't see it". They are both referring to what each saw through the window from where they looked. We consider the siblings were getting to know themselves through comparison and differentiation from the other sibling. Differentiation among siblings serves to attenuate rivalry and to soothe the internal conflict associated to the lateral dimension, occupying a central place in development (Vivona, 2007).

Among siblings we find rivalry as a reflection of what is inherent to human being. In the attempt to understand the present world, in which rivalry and violence – which had always existed – seem to increase, we observe continuous fratricidal wars. Violence and wars maybe manifest themselves as a consequence to what can occur among siblings. It is not easy for men to renounce to their aggressive tendencies. Rivalry present in human beings reflects itself in the social domain.

Many times we observe that the closer the siblings, the greater seems to be rivalry and hostility among them. In the same way, diverse groups within one same political party or one same religion, close communities similar in every aspect, even within the same country, can consider themselves to be mortal enemies. We are discussing what Freud (1921/1996, 1930/1996) labels "narcissism of small differences", in contrast to the fact that, according to him, when the differences are big we are not surprise with the difficulties to overcome our aversion in relation to the other.

In addition, we had also the opportunity to observe, both in the clinical setting and in social life, families in which siblings are supportive, good partners, and accomplices, keeping a relationship of great affective proximity. This type of relationship will extend to the broader family when the siblings get older, that is, the affective interchange among uncles and nephews would later reflect in the friendship among cousins. Rosen, Ackerman and Zosky (2002) demonstrated that the "empty nest syndrome", the phenomenon that describes parents' experience of loss and identity crises when children leave their homes, can also be found among siblings. The last sibling to leave would experiment feelings of sadness, of "empty nest" after all the other siblings had left. The authors conclude that the greater the proximity in the siblings' relationship, the greater this effect seems to be.

Some groups and NGOs start to act with the goal of providing support and solidarity, expressing an attempt of part of society to confront present violence (such as in the social movement "BASTA", for instance) by demanding fraternity. Thus, we observe society behave having as a model the good relationship among siblings, since what happens in the family is mirrored in society.

In this work we intend to conduct a theoretical research – from a psychoanalytic perspective – on the good relationship among siblings. We consider siblings who are children of the same couple, with whom they live, without considering twins.

Fraternal companionship and the subject's constitution

In the available literature regarding fraternal relationships, we find primarily studies that focus on the rivalry among siblings rather than that privileging good quality coexistence. The tendency to emphasize envy, jealousy and rivalry – instead of the good coexistence – in the relationship among siblings results in a lack of importance given to the role played by brotherhood, through the fraternal function, in family structuring.

Kehl (2000) adopts the expression "fraternal function" firstly to emphasize the necessary character, in humans, of the participation of counterparts in the process of becoming a subject. Secondly, to restart the debate around the concept of brotherhood, which according to the author has been relegated to the limbo, banned from discussions and almost considered a damned question by psychoanalysts.

Losso (2001) defines fraternal function as one of the family structuring functions, a function of reciprocal support, collaboration, symmetrical assistance, defense of generational rights, and provision of identification models among siblings who – because belonging to the same generation – function as identification models different from their parents. The relationship among siblings creates a context where, through playing, one can elaborate anguish and develop creativity. In addition to mutual teaching and learning, this relationship allows the moderate discharge of aggression. The possibility of exerting these functions, along with the resulting development of conscious and unconscious formation of bonds, facilitates the establishment of "good enough relationships" with peers in adult life. For siblings to build a "good enough tie" it is necessary a complementarity in their roles, as well as the existence of an intimate relationship, and certain coincidence in their personal values.

One couple had looked for assistance in dealing with problems with their young adult son, who still depended on them. In order to remove the boy from a risky situation, the father's sister had taken the nephew to her house. During one therapeutic session, the couple comments on how lucky they were for the father and his sister getting along so well, fact that had made it possible to find a solution for the risky situation. "You know doctor, how many times my sister and I had fought? None, never. Well, it is true that one day I locked her in the wardrobe, and some other time she threw my stuff from the window". The client laughs when building this account, displaying tenderness for his sister and seemingly experiencing great memories.

By offering the possibility of a field for exercising the control of aggressive instincts, the family favors the development of fraternal bonds. Self-management in the core of brotherhood allows for the fundamental discovery, in the long-run, of how administering feelings of jealously in professional or marital relationships, since fraternal relationships are extremely rich and prepare one for social life.

One client claims during a session:

I get along better with A. and B. (two of her sisters), but at home it is like this, once in a while we fight, we stop talking to each other, but it doesn't last much, it all goes back soon to normality, we get along really well.

The bond among siblings can play an important role in supporting family stability in risky situations, such as parents' divorce, parents or others' death. These family vicissitudes will not necessarily result in the establishment of pathology, as long as it is found a "continent" for them. And this continent might be exactly the fraternal bond. Siblings, while functioning as family support, can also be responsible for caring for parents in their old age.

In the cases of parents' absence, fraternal relationships often constitute the only lasting relationships. In these circumstances these relationships must be protected and supported. Siblings, when on their own, as in the case of wars, natural disasters or abandonment, are in risky situations, once fraternal relationships are all that remains, even if they are not the most adequate form of relationship when compared to the continuous care on an adult. These situations represent challenges to fraternal relationships because they demand the development of tasks that should belong to the dynamics of a child-adult relationship (Solnit, 1983). However, siblings – as a fraternal group – can constitute a team of support of differentiated roles.

Brotherhood, especially in the absence of parental figures, allows for experimenting with several roles and actions. Each sibling can alternately be the object of identification and differentiation. Siblings learn from each other's experiences and this identification relationship builds a fraternal "cement" (Meynckens-Fourez, 1999). According to the author, fraternal relationship exerts at least three functions: attachment, parental replacement, and learning of social and cognitive roles.

Milevsky (2005) investigates the relationship between the support received by siblings and its compensatory effect in psychological adaptation to adult life. The author concluded that fraternal support was associated to lower levels of depression and feelings of loneliness, while levels of satisfaction and self-esteem showed to be higher. In addition, fraternal support compensated the lack of support received from parents and friends.

The study with children in the concentration camp of Térézin in the former Czechoslovakia, who had established privileged relationship among them, is a good example of the relevance the support from fraternal relationships can assume. In that case, horizontal fraternal relationship had replaced, to some extent, the absence of the vertical dimension present in the relationship with parents. Children in focus were traumatized individuals, who had lived in extremely special circumstances because of the loss of his parents. They formed the group known as the Orfans of Térézin, constituted by six children whose parents had been killed by the Nazis. Although they were not biological siblings, they were considered as such because were forced to grow up together since birth, raised in the Ward for Children without Mothers in the mentioned concentration camp. Four of these children had lost their mothers soon after birth and two of them before completing one year of age. After their mothers' death these children moved from place to place, always experiencing the replacement of adult figures around them, with whom they could count solely to attend their basic biological needs. They developed an attachment relationship among them before the acquisition of language and before developing freedom to choose their own companions. Without available toys, their social activity apparently consisted in playing with each other. They had never attached to adults (Bank & Kahn, 1982; Brusset, 1987).

When the allies freed Térézin, em 1945, children were sent to a therapeutic nursery in Hampstead, England, where Anna Freud and Sophie Dann started to observe them. Their ages ranged from three to three years and ten months of age. It was impressive the total lack of rivalry and aggression among members of the group, as well as their lack of trust in adults. The horizontal fraternal relationship had replaced the vertical dimension observed in the relationship with parents.

The experiences shared with siblings will produce horizontal identifications, secondary to the vertical identifications represented by the parental figures ideals. These horizontal identifications, however, are fundamental in providing diverse models for instinctual destination needed for life, once the unary trait represented by the father's name is insufficient. We designate horizontal circulation the kind of social bond in which the transmission of knowledge and experience occurs among similar people, in this case among siblings (Kehl, 2000). Horizontal circulation updates and transforms language in order to express emerging demands that paternal sanction does not allow to satisfy. In addition, in horizontal circulation transgressions would be produced or confessed, practiced not necessarily against the Law, but rather against interdictions, sometimes arbitrary, perpetrated by parents.

In relation to vertical identifications, some would represent the maternal project, while others the paternal. In addition, each sibling would be marked in a different way by the genealogical three, because each would receive in a particular form what had been transmitted. Among siblings the transmission occurs by choice, because what they can rarely accept from their parents – the weight of the Law – they are able to accept from peers, siblings, cousins and friends. In the company of others siblings would be able to learn things about life and the world, acquire language aspects, listen to family histories, elaborate anguishes, develop creativity, explore unknown domains, among which the sexuality domain. The use of ludic elements in their interactions facilitates transmission, heritage, and softens the effect of coercion (Eiguer, 2001).

The verification of differences among siblings would allow that each other appropriate in his way of the name inherited from the father, particularizing and individualizing the "mark", the strength of the unary trait that defines each member of the brotherhood, once in our culture the paternal surname designates all siblings, distinct subjects, making them equal as if they were one some person. Thus, paternal surname becomes, among siblings, the least important names for the subject, because it does not individualize him. Since one same surname cannot designate distinct subjects, the power of the biological father is put into question and the fraternal function would supplement the paternal function, allowing the separation between the Law of authority from the real father. We can still consider a fraternal function without which the subject is not able to recognize himself independently from the mother's specular look and sees in the other a constant threat (Kehl, 2000).

The importance of common interests and shared experiences among siblings points out to a greater developmental proximity among them and to a greater developmental distance between parents and siblings. This proximity refers to a broad range of tolerances and capabilities, including levels of excitement, frustration, conflicts, as well as the capacity for regulation, anticipation, planning and adaptation. Proximity in the development of siblings makes them capable of playing, fighting, loving, and competing in a protective manner, because their emotional and physical strengths and weaknesses are more aligned among them than they would be among parents and siblings. For a child to play, fight, love and compete to an adult, in contrast, it is necessary that this adult controls his strength and acts as an auxiliary ego to lend resources to the child's ego as a way to promote feelings of safety, wellbeing and identification to the adult (Solnit, 1983).

In the Oedipean stage the relationship with siblings offers opportunities to repeat several aspects of the fraternal relationship with parents and vice-versa. The sibling can become a substitute for the parental figure through the reversion from passive to active, through the elaboration and sublimation in fantasy and playing. In the child's attempt to look for adaptive solutions to the Oedipean conflicts, this substitute can be perceived as more malleable than the parental figure. The child who has a sibling is faced with a different set of triangulations in both the Oedipean and pre-Oedipean stages. Love and jealously among siblings are different from the Oedipean conflict experienced among parents and siblings. The sibling who had satisfactorily managed the fraternal rivalry can more easily manage the Oedipean conflict and frustration. One of the reasons for that is related to the fact that the fraternal rival is literally smaller than the parental figure, what may function as a preparatory rehearsal and an encouragement for the child to confront her father/ mother. Parents can even fear that the Oedipean Complex cannot be "solved" without the support of a sibling or other peer as an ally. In the cases of big age differences among siblings, the eldest may represent an alternative or a less conflicting parental substitute, as well as offer the opportunities for resolving the Oedipean conflict in a productive and healthy way. The belief that siblings represent a mutual support in negotiating the Oedipean conflict suggests the love-choice to be always influenced by fraternal relationship (Coles, 2003; Klein, 1981; Kris & Ritvo, 1983).

Coles (2003) considers useful, when treating a couple in crisis, to distinguish between what could be a primitive nursery struggle not yet solved and a struggle that sustains anger because of the disappointment with paternal/maternal love, which one had not given up or which had not been solved. According to the author, we take both the "fraternal self" and the father/child self to our marital relationships, and in these circumstances it is important to differentiate between "This is mine!", meaning "This is my toy and I don't want to share it with you, because you have been so horrible to me" and "This is mine!", meaning "I must have this new beautiful person who has come into my life, for in this way I shall find fulfillment" (p. 82).

Fraternal experience will also provide several opportunities to elaborate the emphatic capability, understood according to Houaiss (2007) as the identification process in which the subject puts himself in the other's place, and based on his own suppositions or impressions tries to comprehend the other's behavior. However, basic capacity for empathy would be established in the interaction between the child and the parental figures. This special form to feel and to get to know another person's feelings and thoughts is intimately connected to the child's ability to internalize and identify with parental attitudes and expectations, a fundamental process for the child in developing his/her own unique personality. Fraternal relationships and experiences both reflect and can promote the quality and intensity of this primary relationship between father/mother and child. Fraternal experience, especially when is positive and facilitates the unique development of each child, can becomes a powerful stage in which children, direct or indirectly (through the other), have the opportunity to perform their internal world (Provence & Solnit, 1983).

The shared game among siblings as a prototype of exchanges may be the first scenario for processed phantasmal unfolding that has as participants subjects who have in common their parents, as well as experiences, places, plays, and routines, this game constituting a way to unfold shared fantasies and establish differences. The sibling, because he/ she is more alike than parents, and at the same time equally dependent on these same parents, constitutes the object of intense and mutual investments. This intensity of cathexis and relationship (often implicating in sharing with siblings a greater amount of time and a greater number of activities than with parents) concedes to the sibling a central role in psychological structuring, as well as in the subjectification process. Situations lived with parents generate in siblings, in addition to feelings of hatred and experiences of rivalry and exclusion, love feelings. The love aspect in fraternal relationships cements solidarity and complementarity among siblings. Starting from the shared experiences in the relationship with parents, this aspect can be transferred to the relationship with others and to coexistence groups. Cooperation and loyalty are considered as privileged products from the love feelings present in fraternal relationships, which have an impact in the subject's broader social relationships, in schools, institutions, and with peers (Urribarri, 1999).

Brotherhood and the construction of social ties

Moguillansky and Vorchheimer (2001) concedes a central place to fraternal bond as a model to the feeling of belonging, which would reflect in social relationships among peers, since we define ourselves as siblings when we are citizens of one same country or members of one same institution. The narcissist root of the feeling of belonging, experienced as being part of a brotherhood, appears in popular wisdom in the following way: if we belong to the same, we are the same, we have the same interests, wish for the same things, and have similar ideals regarding what constitutes common good.

One client claims during a session:

The three of us (siblings) are the same way. You see what happened on Saturday. Me and X. (her husband) went out for lunch. When we asked for the check, they had charged for something we did not order, and forgot to charge for the table service. Since the amount was exactly the same, X. paid for the check saying we were even. We (the three siblings) would have done it differently: we would have paid for what they had not charged, and would not have accepted paying for we didn't owed. It´s a matter of principle. My dad was like that.

The referred experience shows us the powerful affective bond of belonging to one same group, in which differences in age and sex are soften by references to a common ideal of fraternity that excludes rivalry, hatred, incest, and makes it possible to experience the Oedipean complex and castration in a differentiated manner. It is important to consider, however, that the rigid maintenance of an egalitarian ideal among siblings could function as reaction-formation and, in the face on any inequality, may unleash a fratricidal struggle, destroying the group and its elements, unless an outside element – a scapegoat – attracts for itself the hostility. Hence, the narcissist character and the intense ambivalence of fraternal bonds, make the fraternal union, when taken extremes, that is, when there is absolute loyalty to the objects and laws in the family space, acquire thanatic and endogamic values. This may explain the subject's need to move away and form new social groups where the rivalry avoided in the family space will reappear (Brusset, 1987).

Nunan (2007) argues that the term "scapegoat", which designates individuals who take the blame for something when they are innocents, would be originated from a habit among the Hebrews: during the tribes' expiation days, the clergyman would symbolically transfer people's guilt to a goat, naming it while keeping his hand over the animal's head. The goat was then abandoned in the desert, taking with him the tribes' sins. When finding a "scapegoat", the individual frees himself from personal responsibility. We consider that in brotherhood one of the siblings can occupy or be placed in the "scapegoat" role. We need to be aware of the risk that in the name of fraternity we come to exclude – in a paranoid manner – small differences or underrate morality when inhibiting or eliminating singular ethical experiences. (Costa, 2000).

Adolescence is a period of great fraternal constructions, be them either through blood bonds or through friendship bonds. The group would work by recognizing the subject's identification traits – once the subject, when leaving infancy does not yet feel safe in relation to these traits –, as well as being a site for new exogamic identifications. Siblings can even produce a counterculture with their distinctive signs and own values, unreachable to adult comprehension, marked by secret agreements, however less opposed to adults than it may appear. Brotherhood establishes complicity ties that allow in many circumstances to "deceive the father". Siblings, united in the conspiracy, allow themselves to challenge authority through an initiative legitimized by the group, enabling the weakening of the absolute power the paternal word assumes in infancy. If parents, fearing a rebellion and the resulting transgression, become extremely rigid, they may be incoherent to the love and understanding they used to preach. It is important to remember, however, as an excuse to parental reaction, that the horde's rebellion and its union around the father's assassination is part of our mythical model (Eiguer, 2001; Kehl, 2000; Losso & Silvani, 2002).

Several infant tales show the union against parents, which reveals solidarity and complementarity among siblings. In them siblings unite to live together, happy and peaceful after facing risky adventures when leaving their parent's homes. Union and understanding among siblings allow them to defend against their parents. While the Oedipean conflict confront siblings with their exclusion from the sexed parental couple, in these mythical accounts the fraternal group abandons mean or extremely poor parents and establishes an egalitarian and solidary alliance.

Fraternal function is not exclusive to siblings. One father, for instance, can exert the fraternal function with his child while playing a chess game, because the two would be in parity situation. In the same way, cousins or friends can establish intersubjective models with the same characteristics as the fraternal bond, thus exerting the fraternal function. These situations assume a greater importance in the case of single children.

In any way, the experience of fraternal relationship will leave its "marks" in the individual psyche. The bonding models resulting from it, such as ambivalence, rivalry, love feelings, need to repair, domination impulse, subjection to siblings and others, tend to be repeated throughout life in the bonds with peers. In general, siblings have a reciprocal knowledge, conscious and in great part unconscious, of the psychic functioning of each other because they had experienced together feelings and conflicts along time within the intimacy of family life. The "memory" of these family events will remain in each sibling. Even if each of them follows a different path when they grow old, the experience of shared intimacy will leave its "mark" in their unconscious. The knowledge about the other sibling's intimacy will remain as a legacy and a reference point to one's own identity.

Fraternal bond contributes, this way to an intimacy atmosphere and to the maintenance of family unity in what regards bonds' perennial aspect. These bonds actively intervene in the transmission of knowledge and law. When there is affinity, siblings can ease the hardness of obligations, and the eldest can guide the youngest one through life. However, if fraternal rivalry is extreme, these structuring affects would be repressed, broken or become unreachable. Happy coexistence among siblings would greatly depend on parental legacy, that is, the love for the transitional, the respect for the other, and the capacity to learn (Eiguer, 2001).

Final thoughts

Studies on the relationship between parents and children are in much greater number than those focusing on fraternal relationships. Among these, in turn, there is an emphasis on situations of competition, jealousy, hatred, and rivalry. Specialized literature regarding friendship and solidarity among siblings is still scarce. It usually deals with the born of a second child as the arrival of a stranger who invades and disturbs "family harmony", and who can bring as a consequence the awakening of hostile and destructive feelings.

Fraternal complex is fundamental in structuring the subject's individual psychic, as well as his social life. The bonding dynamics established among siblings may determine in great part their lives and their descendants' lives. In the social realm, the influences of this complex can be manifested in the ambivalent relationships cruelty/solidarity among nations, which resist to time and history.

The tendency to privilege relationships of envy, jealousy and rivalry among siblings does not undermine the role brotherhood plays – trough the fraternal function – in structuring family and social life. Siblings would be highly important to each other in the construction of their personalities. Through the perception of differences and similarities, each would be able to perceive him/herself as a subject. Family provides the basic experience of living in groups and siblings, in addition to evoking feelings of jealousy and envy, also constitutes love objects. In some cases, especially in the absence of parental figures or when these figures are deficient in performing their roles, siblings may constitute important identification objects, building a net of support for each other. We can observe how this happen in the cases of adoption, in which is preferable not to separate siblings to be adopted. Fraternal bond would be formed throughout time, because it is possible that in our lifetime we share with our siblings histories, experiences and memories for longer than with anyone else. Brotherhood will enable to experiment socialization before living it with strangers in playgrounds, kindergartens and schools.

The fraternal element will include fraternity, understood as a horizontal woof among similar or different peers. The fraternal question can be considered in a way that exceeds the bond among siblings. In contemporaneity we observe the emergence of groups and NGOs with the goal of providing support and solidarity, in an attempt to confront present violence. They base their actions on the model of good relationship among siblings. However, we find more often in the literature, in our clinic experience or in social life examples of competition, rivalry, enmity among siblings than examples of friendship and solidarity. This finding makes us think whether the companionship among sibling is praised because it is not considered a normal (as referred to the norm, the average), because it is contrary to expectations. We question, in this case, whether values such as fraternity are dislocated to friends, "the chosen siblings". Thus, we conclude that the friendship bond represents the fraternal quality, while similar, and we agree with Kancyper (2004) when he affirms that friendship is a relationship of elected brotherhood.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  21 Nov 2011
• Date of issue
  Dec 2011

History

• Received
  18 Nov 2010
• Accepted
  14 June 2011