The most famous law code is the Codex Hammurabi where, regarding adoption, it could be read, for example: “If a man adopts a child and to his name as son, and rear him, this grown son cannot be demanded back again. If a man adopts a son, and if after he has taken him, he injures his foster father and mother, then this adopted son shall return to his father’s house. If an artisan has undertaken to rear a child and teaches him his craft, he cannot be demanded back” (excerpt from the Codex Hammurabi, lines 185–188).
2.2. Ancient Egyptian Society (Approximately 3200 b. C–31 b.C.)
Egyptian law codes are not known; however, there are pieces of evidence indicating their existence. The presence of adoption in Egyptian law can only be endorsed by support from legal written sources. It is clear from these scarce literary examples that direct lineage heritage was very important to Egyptian culture, and succession was the main motive for adoption (
Teeter 2017;
Vromans 2017). As an example, a letter refers to the scribe Nakhtemmut as having “poor character”: “he is “not like a human being” because he has not caused his wife to become pregnant “like his fellow men. (…) And what is worse, he has not even adopted an orphan to remedy the situation” (
Teeter 2017). Adoption in Egypt was not only a way to add to one’s family, but, legally, it was an accepted way to pass an inheritance of goods (or even high office) to someone who was not in the direct line of descent, and so in some cases adoption had nothing to do with fertility (
Teeter 2017). This tradition was verified in ancient Egyptian society, at least until the year 639 A.D., when Amr ibn al-As conquered Egypt and, presumably, prohibited adoption.
The studies and investigations that have been carried out in the different archaeological sites of the Egyptian Empire and analyses of the papyrological, normative, and literary documentation present in the historical archives certify the presence of the adoptive institution during the last stage of the Old Kingdom of Egypt for dynastic purposes, political and religious. Before this stage, no reference was found in this civilization that proves the existence of the adoptive institution.
This conclusion was reached by the discovery of the French archaeologist Georges Legrain of a series of adoptive stelae, which give off a significance of adoptive paternity in the religious and dynastic context of the ancient Egyptian civilization of adoption to enthrone the “Divine Worshipers” of the Dynastic god Amon-Ra (among other deities). Through adoption, the political power and tacit hegemony of the city were ensured over the rest of the territories of Egypt (it was an instrument of political domination and dynastic consolidation). It was also considered that adoptive paternity during the Old Kingdom of Egypt had a patrimonial and succession purpose (compatible with its religious, political, and dynastic nature); the adoptee did not lose the ties that united him with his natural family and preserved his name and rights to the succession of his father by nature.
During the Ptolemaic dynasty, in the late stage of the historical period of Greco-Roman domination researchers find a series of manuscripts and documents written on papyrus that confirm the legal nature and contractual nature of adoption in Egypt by allowing a third party to, whether a man or a woman, a relative or a stranger, submit a minor under their power through the contractual figure of adoption.
In all the adoption contracts analyzed, a series of clauses were stipulated regarding the obligatory nature of the adopter to raise the minor that they were going to adopt, take care of them, educate them, and establish them as heir to the family patrimony upon their death.
2.3. Ancient Greek Society (Approximately 1200 b.C.–146 b.C.)
Adoption is an important institution in Greek life. Greek marriages were characterized by endogamy, probably to maintain the integrity of Estates, which were transmitted by inheritance through the male line. In order to succeed in an Estate, an heir needed to be recognized as the deceased’s legitimate descendant. Either a natural or an adopted son could inherit without further objection (
Lindsay 2010).
The original aim of adoption was thought of as a device to ensure succession in the male line when there were no legitimate male heirs. The consequence of such an arrangement was that the adoptive son inherited all his father’s possessions and had to maintain his social and religious obligations just like an authentic son. Generally, in fourth-century cases at Athens, an adopted son was selected from near relatives. There was a preference for the adoption of agnatic relatives. Moreover, it was common to adopt a son or sons for marriage to the biological daughter or daughters.
Inheritance seems central, and it is significant whether or not the adopter died with legitimate sons. If there were none, the adoptive son became the heir, also assuming debts and other obligations related to the role. If there were other children, born later than the adoption, then the adopted son would receive a daughter’s share (
Lindsay 2010).
Athenian adoptions of the fourth century b.C. appear to have the same focus as those of the fourth century b.C during the high Classical period. Adoption enabled a rich person without descendants to continue his line and to ensure that his interests were protected in old age. In the case of both Greece and Rome, adoption appears to have been, essentially, for the rich people (
Lindsay 2010).
Models of Adoption in Ancient Greece
In ancient Greece and its city-states, two different models of social, civil, and family organization coexisted: the oligarchic and martial system of Sparta as opposed to the model of Athens and the Cretan city of Gortyna.
In the Spartan model, due to the characteristics of its iron sociopolitical organization (in which all children were the property of the State that was in charge of their education, upbringing, and guardianship with the intent to form vigorous, obedient, and courageous soldiers), adoption was not contemplated as a social institution and filiation or kinship was dependent on the family, whose social function was eminently reproductive and economic.
Education was based on discipline, obedience, and uniformity. Citizenship rights were obtained by the mere fact of being born in Sparta, but full citizenship was only achieved after passing different degrees, such as joining the army (with the category of citizen-soldier), accessing a plot of arable land, or contributing to banquets for social or religious groups (
Baelo Álvarez 2013).
2.4. Ancient Roman Society (Approximately 753 b.C.–476 a.C.)
In Rome, the term was
adoption, which also comprehended
adrogatio when an adult was adopted as a son
homo sui juris that was not in the power of his parent or was himself a paterfamilias. Both adoption and
adrogatio gave the adopted individual the same obligations and privileges as a birth child, and they were legally entitled to inherit and carry on the family name (
Eugena 2015). In Rome in the first century A.D., a prosperous but childless adult who wanted an heir would adopt a postpubescent male, often a slave, to be his son (
Andrews 2004). Indeed, adoption was practiced as a way of securing an heir in ancient Rome. The emperor Trajan, for example, adopted Hadrian, who succeeded him as emperor in 117 A. D. Octavius Augustus was the adopted heir of Julius Caesar (posthumously adopted) through the process of
adrogatio. He was Caesars’s nephew. Other adopted Roman emperors were Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Hadrian, and Trajan (
Mitchell 2007;
Eugena 2015). In the case of politicians, adoption worked also as a technique that enabled the different ideologies of succession to coexist for hundreds of years. Indeed, adoptions often seem to have happened simultaneously with the newly adopted son being married to a biological daughter of the family, at least in the case of imperial adoption practices (
Mitchell 2007). Although there is very little evidence of this practice occurring with consistency among the poorer classes, this type of adoption system was a tactic frequently employed by the imperial families (
Mitchell 2007).
According to
Eugena (
2015), firstly, only men could adopt according to their paterfamilias status. This changed later (second century A.D.), and women were also permitted to adopt.
According to
Mitchell (
2007), although sporadically employed by Byzantine emperors, it seems to have disappeared in the West once the Germanic kingdoms replaced the Roman imperial administration.
2.5. Ancient Muslim Societies
Children could also be received into a family by a form of adoption known as “acknowledgement of parenthood”. If there were already children in the family unit, the adopted child could not inherit family property (
Mitchell 2007).