background and historical development of adoption at rome

Adoption can be defined as a method developed to regulate the entry of new members to the family. This chapter is concerned with the procedures and formalities used to complete an adoption at Rome, and attempts, in so far as is possible, to assess how and when they originated, and how they developed over time. A previous chapter (2) discussed older views of Roman kinship, which were dominated by an evolutionary approach. Roman adoption as an institution has also been seen in evolutionary terms. The resulting picture is now embedded in modern thinking about Roman adoption. It is thus hard to study adoption without a coherent approach to the Roman family and its development, whether evolutionary or otherwise. Political arrangements also go hand in hand with any discussion.

For the earliest phases of Roman history, little can be said about family structures since there are no contemporary sources, and there is little prospect of using later sources to create a completely convincing picture. In the late Republic and early Empire a text from the Twelve Tables was considered important in understanding issues of personal status within the family. Table iv: 2 is a text relating to emancipation, and its significance has been much discussed: