ADOPTION. The Old Testament does not contain any word equivalent to this ; and it may be doubted whether the act occurs in any form answering to the word. The New Testament has the word uloOeo-ta often (Rom. viii. 15, 23 ; ix. 4 ; Gal. iv. 5 ; Eph. i. 5) ; but no example of the act occurs. The term itself is well defined, and the act described, in the /item/ signification of the Greek word. It is the placing as a son of one who is not so by birth.
The practice of adoption had its origin in the desire for male offspring among those who have, in the ordinary course, been denied that blessing, or have been deprived of it by circumstances. This feeling is common to our nature ; but its operation is less marked in those countries where the equalizing influences of high civilization lessen the peculiar privileges of the paternal character, and where the security and the well-observed laws by which estates descend and property is transmitted, withdraw one of the principal inducements to the practice. If found at all, then, in the Bible we may look for instances in the patriarchal period. The law of Moses, by settling the relations of families and the rules of descent, and by formally establishing the Levirate law, which in some sort secured a re presentative posterity even to a man who died with out children, would necessarily put a check upon this custom. The allusions in the New Testament are mostly to practices of adoption which then existed among the Greeks and Romans, and rather to the latter than to the former ; for among the more highly civilized Greeks adoption was less frequent than among the Romans. In the East the practice has always been common, especially among the Semitic races, in whom the love of offspring has at all times been strongly manifested. And here it may be observed that the additional and peculiar stimulus which the Hebrews derived from the hope of giving birth to the Messiah, was inoperative with respect to adoption, through which that privilege could not be realized.
It is scarcely necessary to say that adoption was confined to sons. The whole Bible history affords no example of or allusion to the adoption of a female ; for the Jews certainly were not behind any Oriental nation in the feeling expressed in the Chinese proverb—` He is happiest in daughters who has only sons' (Ift,czn. sur /es Chinois, t. x.
As instances of adoption amongst the patriarchs, the act of Sarah in giving Hagar to Abraham, and of Rachel and Leah giving their maids to Jacob, so as to raise up children to themselves, have been adduced ; but clearly these were not in any proper sense acts of adoption, though in this way the great est possible approximation to a natural relation was produced. The child was the son of the husband, and, the mother being the property of the wife, the progeny must be her property also ; a fact indicated by the statement that, at the time of birth, the hand maid brought forth her child `upon the knees' of her mistress (Gen. xxx. 3). Strange as this custom may seem, it is in accordance with the notions of representation which we find very prevalent in analogous states of society. In this case the vicari ous bearing of the handmaid for the mistress was as complete as possible ; and the sons were retarded as fully equal in right of heritage with those by the legitimate wife. This privilege could not, however, be conferred by the adoption of the wife, but by the natural relation of such sons to the husband. A curious fact is elicited by the peculiar circum stances in Sarah's case, which were almost the only circumstances that could have arisen to try the question, whether a mistress retained her power, as such, over a female slave whom she had thus vicariously employed, and over the progeny of that slave, even though by her own husband. The answer is given, rather startlingly, in the affirmative in the words of Sarah, who, when the birth of Isaac had wholly changed her feelings and position, and when she was exasperated by the offensive conduct of Hagar and her son, addressed her husband thus, ' Cast forth this bondwoman and her son ; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac' (Gen. xxi. so).