The introduction to this book explores how ‘human rights’ related to the family and sexuality have taken shape against an international backdrop since the nineteenth century. It charts how connected local, domestic, and international impulses have sought to address civil, political, and what eventually came to be seen as shared ‘human’ rights related to the family. These efforts often intersected with related concerns about the status of women, gender and sexuality. This essay shows how these initiatives have stretched across the globe, through empires, social movements, international law, and international discourses about rights. They have extended from new constitutional movements to reform marriage and divorce law, address women’s rights inside and outside marriage, guarantee the rights of children and of those involved in same-sex relationships. Not least, these efforts have sought to protect families torn apart through war, regime change, and the legal precarity and confusion created by international borders.