ADOPTION, an act by which any one takes another into his family, owns him for his son, and appoints him for his heir.
The custom of adoption was very common among the ancient Greeks and Romans; yet it was not practiced, but for certain causes expressed in the laws, and with certain formalities usual in such cases. It was a sort of imitation of nature, intended for the comfort of those who had no children: wherefore he that was to adopt was to have no children of his own, and to be past the age of getting any; nor were eunuchs allowed to adopt, as being under an actual impotency of begetting children; neither was it lawful for a young man to adopt an elder, because that it would have been contrary to the order of nature; nay, it was even required that the person who adopted should be eighteen years older than his adopted son, that there might at least appear a probability of his being the natural father.
Among the Greeks it was called νυμφ, filiation. It was allowed to such as had no issue of their own; excepting those who were not κωμ, λατρυ, their own masters, e. g. slaves, women, madmen, infants, or persons under twenty years of age; who being incapable of making wills, or managing their own estates, were not allowed to adopt heirs to them. Foreigners being incapable of inheriting at Athens, if any such were adopted, it was necessary first to make them free of the city. The ceremony of adoption being over, the adopted had his name enrolled in the tribe and ward of his new father; for which entry a peculiar time was allotted, viz. the festival Σατυρλια. To prevent rash and inconsiderate adoptions, the Lacedemonians had a law, that adoptions should be transacted, or at least confirmed, in the presence of their kings. The children adopted were invested with all the privileges, and obliged to perform all the duties, of natural children; and being thus provided for in another family, ceased to have any claim of inheritance, or kindred, in the family which they had left, unless they first renounced their adoption; which, by the laws of Solon, they were not allowed to do, unless they had first begotten children, to bear the name of the person who had adopted them: thus providing against the ruin of families, which would otherwise have been extinguished by the desertion of those who had been adopted to preserve them. If the children adopted happened to die without children, the inheritance could not be alienated from the family into which they had been adopted, but returned to the relations of the adopter. It should seem, that by the Athenian law, a person, after having adopted another, was not allowed to marry without permission from the magistrate: in effect, there are instances of persons, who being ill used by their adoptive children, petitioned for such leave. However this be, it is certain some men married after they had adopted sons: in which case, if they begat legitimate children, their estates were equally shared between the begotten and adopted.
The Romans had two forms of adoption; one before
Adoption. fore the praetor; the other at an assembly of the people, in the times of the commonwealth, and afterwards by a rescript of the emperor. In the former, the natural father addressed himself to the praetor, declaring that he emancipated his son, resigned all his authority over him, and consented he should be translated into the family of the adopter. The latter was practised, where the party to be adopted was already free; and this was called adrogation. The person adopted changed all his names; assuming the prename, name, and surname, of the persons who adopted him.
Besides the formalities prescribed by the Roman law, various other methods have taken place; which have given denominations to different species of adoption, among the Gothic nations, in different ages. As,