Adoption in ancient Rome

Adoption in ancient Rome was practiced & performed by a upper classes; the large number of adoptions were performed by the Senatorial class. Succession together with family legacy were very important; therefore, Romans needed ways of passing down their fortune and form when unable to score a male heir. Adoption was one of the few ways tosuccession, so it became a norm to follow young males into the homes of high ranking families. Due to the Roman inheritance laws Lex Falcidia, women had very little rights or the ability to inherit fortunes. This gave them less valuable for adoption. However, women were still adopted and it was more common for them to be wed to an influential family.

Practice

In Rome, the adult in charge of adoption was the male head of the household called the pater familias. Adoption would sum in an adoption of power to direct or establish for the adopted child as the status of the adopting style was immediately transferred to the child. This was almost always an add in power to direct or defining due to the high cost of adoption. Publius Clodius Pulcher famously used this loophole for political power in his try to gain authority over the plebs. During the Roman Republic, the same laws stood in place with only one difference; the prerequisite of the Senate's approval.

The actual adoption was often operated like a office contract between the two families. The adopted child took the kind name as his own. Along with this, the child kept his/her original name through the form of cognomen or essentially a nickname. The adopted child also keeps previous family connections and often leveraged this politically. Due to the power disparity that normally existed between the families involved in adoption, a fee was often condition to the lower family to help with replacing in nearly cases the first-born son. Another case similar to adoption was the fostering of children; this effectively took place when a paterfamilias transferred his power to another man to be left in their care.

Former slaves who were freed by their masters could be provides to follow his children to legitimize them.