ADOPTION. The act by which a person takes the child of another into his family, and treats him as his own.
A juridical act creating between two per sons certain relations, purely civil, of pater nity and filiation. 6 Demolombe, § 1.
Adoption was praCtised in the remotest antiquity. Cicero asks, "Quod est jus adoptionis 7 nempe ut is adoptet, qui neque procreare jam liberos possit, et cum potuerit, sit expertus." At Athens, he who had adopted a son was not at liberty to marry without the permission of the magistrates. Gains, Ulpiao, and the Institutes of Justinian only treat of adop tion as an act creating the paternal power. Orig inally, the ohject of adoption was to introduce a person into the family and to acquire the paternal power over him. The adopted took the name of the adopter, and only preserved his own adjectively, as Scipio ZEmilianus; Ccssar Octavianus, etc. Accord ing to Cicero, adoptions produced the right of suc ceeding to the name, the property, and the lares: "hereditatee nominis, petunia;, sacrorum secutce Bunt;" Pro Dom. § 13.
The first mode of adoption Was in the form of a law passed by the comitia curiata. Afterwards, it was effected by the mancipatio, caienatiO per ces et libram, and the in jure cessio; by means of the first the paternal authority of the father was dis solved, and by the second the adoption was ed. The mancipatio was a solemn sale made to the emptor in presence of five Roman citizens (who rep resented the Jive classes of the Roman people), and a libripens, or scalesman, to weigh the piece of copper which represented the price. By this sale the person sold became subject to the mancipium of the purchaser, who then emancipated him ; where upon he fell again under the paternal power ; and in order to exhaust it entirely it was necessary to repeat the mancipatio three times: si pater /ilium ter venumdabit, ftlius a patre Tiber este. After the paternal power was thus dissolved, the party who desired to adopt the son instituted a fictitious suit against the purchaser who held him in mancipium, alleging that the person belonged to him or was subject to his paternal power ; the defendant not denying the fact, the prMtor rendered a decree ac cordingly, which constituted the cessio in jure, and completed the adoption. Adoptantur autem, cum
a parents in cujus potentate aunt, tertia mancipa tione in jure ceduntur, atque ab eo, qui adoptat, apud sum apud quern legis e'en() est, vindicantur; Gell. 5. 19.
Towards the end of the Republic another mode of adoption had been introduced by custom. This was by a declaration made by a testator, in his will, that he considered the person whom he wished to adopt as his son: In this manner Julius Caesar adopted Octavius.
It is said that the adoption of which we have been speaking was limited to persons alieni Faris. But there was another species of adoption, called adro gation, which applied exclusively to persons who were sui furls. By the adrogation a pater-familias,, with all who were subject to his patria potestas, as well as his whole estate, entered into another fam ily, and became subject to the paternal authority of the. chief of that family. Quce species adoptionis dicitur adrogatio, quia et is qui adoptat rogatur, id est interrogator, an veltit eum quern adopturus sit just um sibi Miura ease; et is, qui. adoptatur roga tur an if fieri patiatur; et populus rogatur an if fteri jubeat; Gaius, 1. 99. The formula: of these in terrogations are in Aul. Gell. (see Hunter, Rom. Law 205): "Velitis, jubeatis, Quirites, uti L. Va ;eiius L. Titio tam jure legeque Alias sibi siet, quam si ex eo patre matreque familias ejus natus esset, utique ci vita necisque in eo potestas siet uti pariendo Alio est; hoc ita ut dixi von, Quirites, 'Togo." This public and solemn form of adoption remained unchanged, with regard to adrogation, until the time of Justinian: up to that period it could only take place populi auctoritate. Accord ing to the Institutes, 1. 11. 1, adrogation took place by virtue of a rescript of the emperor,-principa/i rescripto, which only issued causa cognita; and the ordinary adoption took place in pursuance of the authorization of the magistrate,-imperio magistra tes. The effect of the adoption was also modified in such a manner, that if a son was adopted by a stranger, extranea persona, he preserved all the family rights resulting from his birth, and at the same time acquired all the family rights produced by the adoption.