Gulped, seeing son and wife given permission (9)
I believe the answer is:
swallowed
'gulped' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'son and wife given permission' is the wordplay.
'son' becomes 's' (genealogical abbreviation for son).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'wife' becomes 'w' (abbreviation).
'given permission' becomes 'allowed' (I've seen this before).
's'+'w'+'allowed'='SWALLOWED'
'seeing' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for swallowed that I've seen before include "Gulped" , "drunk maybe" , "believed" , "Meekly accepted" , "Ingested" .)