Symmetric Relation/Examples/Is a Brother of

Example of Symmetric Relation

Let $P$ be the set of male people.

Let $\sim$ be the relation on $P$ defined as:

$\forall \tuple {x, y} \in P \times P: x \sim y \iff \text { $x$ is a brother of $y$}$

Then $\sim$ is a symmetric relation.

This does not hold if $P$ is the set of all people.

Because if $a$ is male and $b$ are brother and sister, then:

$a \sim b$

but:

$b \not \sim a$

Sources

• 1967: George McCarty: Topology: An Introduction with Application to Topological Groups ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $\text{I}$: Sets and Functions: Relations
• 1982: P.M. Cohn: Algebra Volume 1 (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Chapter $1$: Sets and mappings: $\S 1.4$: Equivalence relations