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 practised 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 would have been contrary to the order of nature; nay, it was even required that the person who adopted should he 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 υιοrης, filiation. It was allowed to such as had no issue of their own, excepting those who were not κύριοι εαυτών, 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 3α^λ∕α. 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 the 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; and there are instances of persons who, being ill used by their adoptive children, petitioned for such leave. However this may be, it is certain that 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 the adopted.

The Romans had two forms of adoption; the one before the pretor, the other at an assembly of the people, in the times of the commonwealth, and afterwards by a rescript from the emperor. In the former, the natural father addressed himself to the pretor, declaring that he emancipated his son, resigned all his authority over him, and consented that 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 person 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. Thus, ADOPTION by Arms was when a prince made a present of arms to a person, in consideration of his merit and valour. The obligation here laid on the adoptive son was to protect and defend the father from injuries, affronts, &c. And hence, according to Selden, the ceremony of dubbing knights took its origin as well as name.

Adoption by Baptism is that spiritual affinity which is contracted by godfathers and godchildren in the ceremony of baptism. This kind of adoption was introduced into the Greek church, and came afterwards into use among the ancient Franks, as appears by the capitulars of Charlemagne.

Adoption by Hair was performed by cutting off the hair of a person, and giving it to the adoptive father. It was thus that Pope John VIII. adopted Boson, king of Arles, which perhaps is the only instance in history of adoption in the order of the ecclesiastics; a law that professes to imitate nature, not daring to give children to those in whom it would be thought a crime to beget any.

ADOPTION by Matrimony is the taking of the children of a wife or husband by a former marriage into the condition of proper or natural children, and admitting them to inherit on the same footing with those of the present marriage.

ADoρτi0N by Testament, that performed by appointing a person heir by will, on condition of his assuming the name, arms, &c. of the adopter; of which kind we meet with several instances in the Roman history. Among the Turks, the ceremony of adoption is performed by obliging the person adopted to pass through the shirt of the [7:2:161]adopter. Hence, among that people, to adopt is expressed by the phrase, to draw another through my shirt. It is said that something like this has also been observed among the Hebrews, where the prophet Elijah adopted Elisha for his son and successor, and communicated to him the gift of prophecy, by letting fall his cloak or mantle on him. But adoption, properly so called, does not appear to have been practised among the ancient Jews. Moses says nothing of it in his laws; and Jacob’s adoption of his two grandsons, Ephraim and Manassch, is not so properly an adoption as a kind of substitution, whereby those two sons of Joseph were allotted an equal portion in Israel with his own sons.