Personal law governs family relations across jurisdictions, distinguishing domicile based and nationality based rules affecting marriage and succession. Personal law denotes the law governing an individual's family and personal relations-marriage, divorce, legitimacy, capacity and succession-applied by reference to a personal characteristic such as domicile in common law systems or nationality (lex patriae) in civil law systems; identification of the applicable personal law determines which legal system provides rules on capacity, matrimonial status, legitimacy and succession across jurisdictions.