Adoption plays a major part in the traditional law of many Eurasian societies. It occupies a large portion of Mayne's Treatise on Hindu Law and Usage (1878). The Babylonian code of Hammu-rabi, the oldest comprehensive set of written laws, gives a prominent position to ‘Adoption and Wet-nursing’ (Driver and Miles, 1952, 383–406). And the institution receives the same kind of attention in the law of China, Greece and Ancient Rome. Theoretically it has been of central importance in the writings of Sir Henry Maine and Fustel de Coulanges, where it is linked to the perpetuation of corporations of agnates over time.

In recent years much work has been done on the structure of such kinship corporations (usually known as unilineal descent groups) in Africa and elsewhere (e.g. Fortes, 1953) and, directly or indirectly, the work of Maine and Fustel de Coulanges has played some importance in the seminal studies of segmentary lineage systems in Africa. It is remarkable therefore that adoption is rarely, if ever, mentioned in these accounts of African societies; the institution is not discussed at all in the important studies by Evans-Pritchard of the Nuer (1951) and Fortes of the Tallensi (1949b). The situation of the Ashanti seems typical; legal analysts and sociological observers agree that adoption as such is not known in Ashanti law (Allott, 1966, 194).