Adoption

Another form of‘arranged’ kinship, adoption, became possible through the laws of Leo VI, also for women ‘who had not by nature received the gift’ of children and for men who had been deprived of the ability to procreate by castration. Before this law only women whose children had died were allowed to adopt, and this only exceptionally, and by imperial rescript. Now even women who had never had children were not to be refused this consolation. Leo Vi’s novel lessened one of the inequalities between men and women but also confirmed that adoption no longer established pfltriflpofestos over the adopted child.

Although the ties of adoption were created by an ecclesiastical blessing, as stated by Leo Vi’s Novel xxiv, contracts were also part of the procedure of adoption. Notarial formulas (i3th-i5th centuries) for adoption contracts convey circumstantial details of the context for adoption: an impoverished widow sought an adoptive parent for her child or was approached by a prospective parent. The formulas show that both childless couples and parents with children adopted.

Adoptions, like other forms of kinship, carried with them mutual obligations. The mother giving up her child had to undertake, under penalty of fine, not to try to overturn or change the agreement, nor attempt to take her child away from the adoptive parents. The adopted child was obliged to serve and honour its adopted parents. The adoptive parents’ duties fall into two categories. In one kind of contract they agree to provide the necessities, a home, food, and clothing, and a dowry. The latter was the legal responsibility of a parent (Scheltema and van der Wal 1962: B.28.4.11 (p. 1326)). The other type of contract makes the adopted child the heir to property and successor to the family line (genos), and ‘legitimate’ (gnesios) offspring.

This variation in the provisions for adopted children shows that there were degrees of‘belonging’ to the family, both from the child’s and the adoptive parents’ point of view. Without the stipulation in the contract that the adopted child was an instituted heir, the adopted child could claim only an intestate inheritance.

Adoption differed from the other forms of ‘arranged’ kinship in a significant way. The formulas show that natural and adoptive parents approached one another direcdy. The adopted child might, therefore, know his blood family and associate with his blood kin. Even so, adoption does not appear to have created ties with a wider kin group, except for the adopted child. Adoptive ties created family by providing for its survival through an heir but its ties were not social (Macrides 1990: 109-18 and 1999:307-18).