Cultural variations in adoption

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There are several notable cultural variations in adoption. Adoption is an arrangement by which an orphaned child or one whose biological parents are unable to care for them is "adopted". While all societies make provision for the rearing of children whose own parents are unavailable to care for them, cultures and legal systems treat an adopted child in different ways ranging from equivalent status to legitimate biological children to guardianship.

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There are variations regarding inheritance of property and rank, for example, under a system of adoption, if a parent dies intestate, the adopted child stands in exactly the same position regarding inheritance as a biological child. Inheritance of rank varies across jurisdictions and time periods, in pre-modern Japan, a child could inherit the parent's aristocratic title or samurai rank, whereas in the United Kingdom (which only introduced legal adoption in 1926), only a biological child could inherit an aristocratic title, even if raising or providing for parentless children was a common practice.

Arab

In Arab cultures, if a child is adopted, he or she traditionally does not become a "son" or "daughter", but rather a ward of the adopting caretaker(s). The child's surname is not changed to that of the adopting parent(s), who are publicly recognised as "guardians", making it close to other nations' systems for foster care. Other common rules governing adoption in Islamic culture address inheritance, marriage regulations, and the fact that adoptive parents are considered trustees of another individual's child rather than the child's new parents. [1] In addition, Islamic countries such as Iraq and Malaysia have prohibitions against a child of Muslim parents being adopted by non-Muslim individuals. [2] [3]

Jewish

Judaism contrasts to Roman law, in that the adoptive parents do not entirely replace the role of the biological parents. An adoption procedure was never introduced in Jewish Law. In Judaism, genealogy determines the status of the child, which cannot be removed by a legal procedure.

Korea

In traditional Korean culture, adoption almost always occurred when another family member (sibling or cousin) gives a male child to the first-born male heir of the family. Adoptions outside the family were rare. This has also been the reason why most orphaned Korean children have been exported to countries such as the United States. This is also true to varying degrees in other Asian societies. To this day orphanages are still common all over South Korea.

Africa

On the other hand, in many African cultures, children are often given to adoptive families. By giving their child to another family, the birth family seeks to create enduring ties with the adoptive family. The placing family may receive another child from that family, or from another. In the same way as giving their child for adoption, the exchange of female relatives from one family to another, for marriage, is meant to create enduring connections and social solidarity among families and lineages. Among the Mbuti people, sister exchange is the common form of marriage.

India

There is no uniform adoption law in India; however, this statement could be debated. The Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act of 1956 allows only Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists to adopt. Muslims, Christians, Jews and Parsees can become only guardians under the Guardians and Wards Act of 1890. Guardianship expires once the child attains the age of 18 years. [4] For children adopted outside India, guardianship is awarded with the expectation that the child will be quickly adopted by the adopted parents in the country where they legally reside. The Indian government regulates domestic and inter-country adoption of children in India. [5]

Pacific

"Fluid adoption" [6] is common in Pacific culture, and rarely are ties to the biological family severed, as traditionally has occurred in Western adoptions. Many Europeans and Americans associate adoption as a solution to something gone wrong, e.g. unwanted pregnancy (by genetic parent) or infertility (by adoptive parent). By contrast, most of the Pacific cultures, for example in Sikaiana in the Solomon Islands, prefer that children move between different households. Fosterage is viewed as a way to create and maintain close personal relations, and parents traditionally do not refuse to let others take their children. These transfers of children between different caretakers and households are not exclusive, and they do not permanently separate the children from their biological parents. [7]

New Zealand Māori have a form of traditional adoption practised within extended family called whāngai (Māori, "to feed"). [8] Ties to the biological family are not normally severed. [9] [10]

Kiribati culture also practice this fluid adoption, called "tibu".

Tahitians practice faʼaʼamu  [ fr ] (literally "giving to eat") adoption. Its basic functions are comparable to the ones of other traditional adoption practices, notably in Africa; a child can be "given" with the agreement or on the initiative of the family council for a variety of reasons, and they can even be asked for and given before birth. [11]

Tikopia

Traditional Tikopia (Solomon Islands) society did not practice adoption as it is traditionally understood in Western societies. It was not uncommon for families to rear children left parentless, and childless adults would sometimes take the child of another family and bring it up. The children, however, retained the tribal affiliation of their biological fathers, and inherited land only from the property of the paternal lineage, not from the property of the lineage of the guardian. [12]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adoption</span> Parenting a child in place of the original parents

Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parent</span> Caregiver of offspring in their own species

A parent is either the progenitor of a child or, in humans, it can refer to a caregiver or legal guardian. The gametes of a parent result in a child, a male through the sperm, and a female through the ovum. Parents are first-degree relatives and have 50% genetic meet. A female can also become a parent through surrogacy. Some parents may be adoptive parents, who nurture and raise an offspring, but are not biologically related to the child. Orphans without adoptive parents can be raised by their grandparents or other family members.

A stepfamily is a family where at least one parent has children who are not biologically related to their spouse. Either parent, or both, may have children from previous relationships or marriages. Two known classifications for stepfamilies include "simple" stepfamilies, where only one member of the family's couple has a prior child or children and the couple does not have any children together, and "complex" or "blended" families, where both members of the couple have at least one child from another relationship.

Filiation is the legal term for the recognized legal status of the relationship between family members, or more specifically the legal relationship between parent and child. As described by the Government of Quebec:

Filiation is the relationship which exists between a child and the child’s parents, whether the parents are of the same or the opposite sex. The relationship can be established by blood, by law in certain cases, or by a judgment of adoption. Once filiation has been established, it creates rights and obligations for both the child and the parents, regardless of the circumstances of the child’s birth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adoption in ancient Rome</span> Adoption in Roman law

Adoption in ancient Rome was primarily a legal procedure for transferring paternal power (potestas) to ensure succession in the male line within Roman patriarchal society. The Latin word adoptio refers broadly to "adoption", which was of two kinds: the transferral of potestas over a free person from one head of household to another; and adrogatio, when the adoptee had been acting sui iuris as a legal adult but assumed the status of unemancipated son for purposes of inheritance. Adoptio was a longstanding part of Roman family law pertaining to paternal responsibilities such as perpetuating the value of the family estate and ancestral rites (sacra), which were concerns of the property-owning classes and cultural elite. During the Imperial era, adoption became a way to ensure imperial succession.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tongyangxi</span> Pre-modern Chinese tradition of arranged marriage

Tongyangxi, also known as Shim-pua marriage in Min Nan, was a tradition of arranged marriage dating back to pre-modern China, in which a family would adopt a pre-adolescent daughter as a future bride for one of their pre-adolescent sons, and the children would be raised together.

International adoption is a type of adoption in which an individual or couple residing in one country becomes the legal and permanent parent(s) of a child who is a national of another country. In general, prospective adoptive parents must meet the legal adoption requirements of their country of residence and those of the country whose nationality the child holds.

Fosterage, the practice of a family bringing up a child not their own, differs from adoption in that the child's parents, not the foster-parents, remain the acknowledged parents. In many modern western societies foster care can be organised by the state to care for children with troubled family backgrounds, usually on a temporary basis. In many pre-modern societies fosterage was a form of patronage, whereby influential families cemented political relationships by bringing up each other's children, similar to arranged marriages, also based on dynastic or alliance calculations.

Closed adoption is a process by which an infant is adopted by another family, and the record of the biological parent(s) is kept sealed. Often, the biological father is not recorded—even on the original birth certificate. An adoption of an older child who already knows their biological parent(s) cannot be made closed or secret. This used to be the most traditional and popular type of adoption, peaking in the decades of the post-World War II Baby Scoop Era. It still exists today, but it exists alongside the practice of open adoption. The sealed records effectively prevent the adoptee and the biological parents from finding, or even knowing anything about each other. However, the emergence of non-profit organizations and private companies to assist individuals with their sealed records has been effective in helping people who want to connect with biological relatives to do so.

In the United States, adoption is the process of creating a legal parent–child relationship between a child and a parent who was not automatically recognized as the child's parent at birth.

Open adoption is a form of adoption in which the biological and adoptive families have access to varying degrees of each other's personal information and have an option of contact. While open adoption is a relatively new phenomenon in the west, it has been a traditional practice in many Asian societies, especially in South Asia, for many centuries. In Hindu society, for example, it is relatively common for a childless couple to adopt the second or later son of the husband's brother when the childless couple has limited hope of producing their own child.

Islamic views on adoption are generally distinct from practices and customs of adoption in other non-Muslim parts of the world like Western or East Asian societies. Adoption in the western sense of the word is not recognized in Islam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islam and children</span> Rights of children in Islam

The topic of Islam and children includes Islamic principles of child development, the rights of children in Islam, the duties of children towards their parents, and the rights of parents over their children, both biological and foster children.

Adoption in France is codified in the French Civil Code in two distinct forms: simple adoption and plenary adoption.

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Hānai is a term used in the Hawaiian culture that refers to the informal adoption of one person by another. It can be used as an adjective, such as "hānai child," or as a verb, to hānai someone into the family. Traditionally, hānai took place shortly after birth, when a baby's biological parents gave the infant to another couple to raise. In pre-contact Hawaii, paternal grandparents had a claim on the first-born boy, and maternal grandparents on the first-born girl. The practice could serve to expand and strengthen family ties, and was an efficient way for a society to pass knowledge and culture down the generations. However, the adopting couple might be more distant relatives, or not related at all. Hānai also was used for political alliances to link royal families, and continued among royalty even after Western contact. Lili‘uokalani, Hawai‘i’s last monarch, was the hānai child of chiefs higher ranking than her biological parents. In her autobiography, Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen, she wrote that hānai “seems perfectly natural to us.. .. this alliance by adoption cemented the ties of friendship between the chiefs. It spread to the common people, and it has doubtless fostered a community of interest and harmony.”

Japanese adult adoption is the practice in Japan of legally and socially accepting a nonconsanguineal adult into an offspring role of a family. The centuries-old practice was developed as a mechanism for families to extend their family name, estate and ancestry without an unwieldy reliance on blood lines. Still common today, adult adoption is a dynamic tool for social and economic mobility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adoption in the Philippines</span>

Adoption in the Philippines is a process of granting social, emotional and legal family and kinship membership to an individual from the Philippines, usually a child. It involves a transfer of parental rights and obligations and provides family membership. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) defines adoption as a "socio-legal process of giving a permanent family to a child whose parents have voluntarily or involuntarily given up their parental rights."

Adoption does not exist formally as a practice in Jewish Law (Halacha), although rabbinic texts were not uniform on whether or not they recognized the validity of adoption and several examples of adoption take place in the Hebrew Bible and texts from the Second Temple Judaism. The Hebrew word for adoption ‘אימוץ’ (immutz), which derives from the verb ‘אמץ’ (amatz) in Psalm 80 verse 16 and 18 meaning ‘to make strong’, was not introduced until the modern age. Jewish perspectives towards adoption promote two contradictory messages towards nurture and nature. On the one hand, Judaism expresses favourable attitudes towards adoption across religious movements and is widely viewed as a good deed (mitzvah). Based on the Talmudic teachings that when one raises an orphan in their home, "scripture ascribes it to him as though he had begotten him," rabbis have argued that the commandment of procreation can also be fulfilled through the act of adoption. However, this interpretation raises a number of questions in relation to lineage and biological status, which is a core value in Halacha.

Whāngai adoption, often referred to simply as whāngai, is a traditional method of open adoption among the Māori people of New Zealand.

References

  1. ↑ "Adoption in Islam". Archived from the original on 2011-11-21. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
  2. ↑ "Adoption obstacles - Blogging Baghdad: The Untold Story - MSNBC.com". Archived from the original on 2007-10-12. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
  3. ↑ FAQ on Adoption Archived 2009-02-26 at the Wayback Machine - National Registration Department of Malaysia. (archived version 2006)[ dead link ]
  4. ↑ News from India
  5. ↑ "Central Adoption Resources Agency". www.adoptionindia.nic.in. Archived from the original on 14 November 2007. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  6. ↑ Bourgeois, M.; Malarrive, J. (May 1976), "Fa'a'mu and Fanau. Various traditional aspects and current problems of adoption and donation of children in French Polynesia", Annales médico-psychologiques, 1 (5): 721–37, PMID   970828
  7. ↑ Donner, William W. (1999), "Sharing and Compassion: Fosterage in a Polynesian Society", Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 30 (4): 703–722, doi:10.3138/jcfs.30.4.703
  8. ↑ Te Whanake Dictionary, entry for whāngai Archived 2012-08-04 at archive.today
  9. ↑ Keane, Basil (10 May 2011). "Whāngai – customary fostering and adoption". Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 31 March 2012.
  10. ↑ "Journal of the Polynesian Society: The Ainu People of Northern Japan, by I. L. G. Sutherland, P 203-226".
  11. ↑ Scotti, Daria Michel, Crossing worlds (D'un monde à l'autre) Reflection on customary adoption practices, archived from the original on 2011-07-25
  12. ↑ Firth, Raymond, "We the Tikopia, Beacon Press Edition, 1936, 1957, 1963, .pp 190-193
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