Adoption

Early History of Adoption

Roman law permitted adoption, but unlike today, where it is usually done in the best interests of the child, earlier adoption occurred primarily to benefit those doing the adopting. Roman adoption law provided an opportunity for childless couples to maintain family inheritances by adopting sons who would carry on both the family name and religious requirements that families have sons. Adoptees were all male and usually adults. English law did not address adoption because there did not appear to have been a need, since inheritance could occur only through blood lineage.

History of Adoption: 18th-19th Centuries

By the 17th century, adoption had become unnecessary, as orphaned children or those whose parents could not care for them were most often placed in other homes for domestic service, indenture, and apprenticeship. Children who were not yet old enough to be “put out” to homes for work were placed in almshouses—public institutions for children—until they were 6 or 7 years old.

The first American almshouses were built in the 1700s, but by the mid-1800s most of them were gone. Often, 80 percent of the people in the almshouses were mentally ill, and the remaining children were often abused and neglected. Nineteenth-century adoption laws were put into place in order to take better care of children who were dependents of [Page 20]the system. In 1851, Massachusetts became the first state to enact such a law, which contained the following provisions: (1) the natural parents or legal guardian must give written consent; (2) both adoptive parents must consent to the adoption; (3) an adoptive child 14 years or older must also consent to the placement; (4) the judge involved in the adoption must be satisfied that the parents were suitable to care for the child; (5) once the adoption was approved by the court, the child's status would be the same as if he or she were a biological child, and (6) the biological parents forfeited all legal rights and obligations to the child. This law was the precursor to much of adoption law as it exists today.

In 1853, the Children's Aid Society of New York City began a program to deal with orphaned, abandoned, and otherwise homeless children on the streets of the city. The society began sending children ages 2–14 to live with farm families for permanent placement to provide farm labor, in an effort to keep the children from falling victim to life on the streets. This program included the orphan train movement, where children were placed on a train in eastern cities and then shipped westward to be adopted by farmers. There was such a demand for the children that the train stops were announced in advance; farmers showed up to inspect the children, selected them, and take them home. Historians estimate that as many as 100,000 children were placed on farms throughout the Midwest during the time the orphan train movement existed from 1854 to 1904, although a few trains ran as late as 1929. Unfortunately, there was no follow-up to ensure that the children were formally adopted by the farmers; apparently, many of the children had parents who had not forfeited their rights nor knew that their children had been sent to the rural communities.

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