Adoption.
There were three conditions necessary to adoption. The first requirement was that there were no sons in the family, nor hopes of any, and that the father should be about eighteen years older than the one to be adopted as a son; the second condition was that the honor, religion, domestic worship, or sacrifices of the two families, should not in any way be injured; and the third, that there should be no fraud or collusion.
Adoption proper was for minors. The two fathers, the natural and the adoptive, arranged the matter between them and then, with the child, went before the proper authorities and in the presence of witnesses was legally carried out. The adopted son took the rank and the name of the family into which he entered, he was introduced to the domestic sacrifices, and he became a full heir. If there was a daughter in the family, she became his sister and he could not marry her.
Adrogation was the form of adoption used with citizens who were their own masters. This required the consent of the people assembled for the purpose. Under this act a citizen with his property and all persons subjected to him passed into another's power.
"These adoptions finally led to abuse. The patrician, to obtain the tribuneship, would be adopted by some plebeian, and those who were without children, that they might enjoy office to which only fathers of families could be elected, adopted children, whom, after obtaining the offices, they emancipated. This finally required, to remedy it, a decree of the senate in the reign of Nero."[194]