I am trying to deal with a new revelation (both in this program and life) that my dad was not related to me. So, I finally found a way to add my biological father and leave my mother married to her husband, the father of my brothers. However, I notice today that Roots made my biological mother a spouse of my biological father. I unlinked my mother from my biological father (BF) and then I no longer had a father. So I linked myself to my BF and Roots Made my BF the spouse to my mother, again. I want to reserve my BF’s marriage for they had children together. So I don’t know how Roots Magic deals with, frankly and accurately, bastards. (These things do happen in the best of families. I’m sure there are others who have had to deal with it…in Roots Magic, that is.
Despite any colloquial social cultural traditional meanings associated with the wording in this program… the word Spouse is merely used as a default placeholder label for the two humans whose DNA comprises the associated child.
Years and years of user mentions have failed to come up with a more universally-accepted substitute word (for that placeholder).
If I am not missing something, you simple define your parents as a couple but do not name them as married. You can explain the situation in a note if you choose to do so.
Well, I guess I can understand how different people would want to say it differently. I tend to want be bluntly factual.
Roots Magic comes close with what your clip shows. I used your suggest but, of course, it does not actually change the existing label. As a retired database and programmer, I understand why, But, of course the answer is for the convenience of the Roots Program writer. 
I know it can be done, but they don’t work for me.
Thank you for your comment. It helped.
Someone replied to your post.
| kbens0n
February 21 |
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DavidLumpkin:
Roots made my biological mother a spouse of my biological father
Despite any colloquial social cultural traditional meanings associated with the wording in this program… the word Spouse is merely used as a default placeholder label for the two humans whose DNA comprises the associated child.
Years and years of user mentions have failed to come up with a more universally-accepted substitute word (for that placeholder).
Thanks for your comment. You are exactly right. I guess it boils down to that fact that I would actually like to change that label. So, what Kevin Benson suggested works…in a way. At least there is a side not indicating that the Spouse Mother is something else. I will make that “note” in my database for now. Maybe RM will eventually let that show up in all the right places.
Thank you,
David
Someone replied to your post.
| mscheffler
February 21 |
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If I am not missing something, you simple define your parents as a couple but do not name them as married. You can explain the situation in a note if you choose to do so.
Yes – people often wrongly assume couple must be married - not necessarily true.
However it MOST CERTAINLY takes a “Couple” (TWO) to produce child.
I do get the confusion but the bottom line is the Biological Parents: Simply links the two individuals as the source of DNA and RM labels them are “couple” (nothing to do with marital status.)
Yes, I think it is time for RM to get real and address this misnomer of a label. It is, really, a part of your genealogical history that we are forced to record incorrectly. But, I am a perfectionist and know, for sure, this does not curse everyone else. 
Someone replied to your post.
| kevync1985
February 21 |
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If I am not missing something, you simple define your parents as a couple but do not name them as married. You can explain the situation in a note if you choose to do so.
Yes – people often wrongly assume couple must be married - not necessarily true.
However it MOST CERTAINLY takes a “Couple” (TWO) to produce child.
I do get the confusion but the bottom line is the Biological Parents: Simply links the two individuals as the source of DNA and RM labels them are “couple” (nothing to do with marital status.)
I guess the question then is if NOT couple then “WHAT” would be more appropriate to MOST users?
I appreciate how difficult this must be - it happened to the husband of a cousin of mine. I expect this may be obvious but you can add a second set of parents (your mother and her husband) and choose a different relationship to you for your mother’s husband from the drop down list in your edit person list. At the moment they are:-
If you can think of a more appropriate one I suspect it would be easier to add to the list than changing the word ‘spouse’.
Good luck.
Upon a child’s conception, each parent becomes “in effect” an espouser; Spouse is just a more frequently used variation for definition 1 presented as a title traditionally, while definition 2 is the more descriptive action associated with the base premise.
The parents are “the cause” and “become attached by DNA”.