Taking a member of another family into one's own family; usually in antiquity only adults were adopted. In adoption the concern was not the well-being of the adopted person but the continuation of the agnatic family association into which the adopted person was introduced. Adoption was used above all if there was no male heir. Adoption was already documented in Cretan inscriptions (IC IV 20; IV 21) of the 7th/6th cents. BC; it was comprehensively regulated in Gortynian law (X 33-XI 23) with almost no restrictions on adoption.
In Athens there were three types of adopt…