The present article reviews the evolution of family studies in Colombia, from the pioneering work of Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda, noting how in her intellectual journey she, shortly before her death, managed to foresee the subject that will become one of the most important emerging research agendas in the study of family issues in recent times: the status of same-sex couples. Through the different concepts and types of family, the article is showing a genealogy of what is constituted as a basis for claiming a right to gay marriage, but also announcing the dissociation that de facto has been occurring between marriage and family.