Natural guardians
The father is the primary guardian for a legitimate boy and unmarried girl and their property, while the mother is the secondary guardian. However, the mother is the ordinarily guardian for all children under the age of five. For illegitimate children, the mother is the primary guardian, while the father is the secondary guardian. A married minor girl's husband becomes her guardian. For an adoptive son, the adoptive father is the primary guardian, then the adoptive mother. [1]
Each of these, if they chose, may appoint guardians of their child's person or property. [1]
Should a parent cease being a Hindu or become a renouncer, hermit, or ascetic, that parent will lose his or her guardian rights. [1]
Abilities of natural guardians
Natural guardians can take actions that will benefit and protect the minor and his or her property. However, the guardian cannot sign a personal covenant for the minor. The guardian cannot sell, mortgage or give away any part of the minor's immovable property, lease this property for more than five years, or lease the property for more than one year after the child becomes eighteen. [1]
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.
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. Parent 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.
The Regency Acts are Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed at various times, to provide a regent in the event of the reigning monarch being incapacitated or a minor. Prior to 1937, Regency Acts were passed only when necessary to deal with a specific situation. In 1937, the Regency Act 1937 made general provision for a regent, and established the office of Counsellor of State, a number of whom would act on the monarch's behalf when the monarch was temporarily absent from the realm or experiencing an illness that did not amount to legal incapacity. This Act, as modified by the Regency Acts of 1943 and 1953, forms the main law relating to regency in the United Kingdom today.
A legal guardian is a person who has been appointed by a court or otherwise has the legal authority to make decisions relevant to the personal and property interests of another person who is deemed incompetent, called a ward. For example, a legal guardian might be granted the authority to make decisions regarding a ward's housing or medical care or manage the ward's finances. Guardianship is most appropriate when an alleged ward is functionally incapacitated, meaning they have a lagging skill critical to performing certain tasks, such as making important life decisions. Guardianship intends to serve as a safeguard to protect the ward.
Emancipation of minors is a legal mechanism by which a minor before attaining the age of majority is freed from control by their parents or guardians, and the parents or guardians are freed from responsibility for their child. Minors are normally considered legally incompetent to enter into contracts and to handle their own affairs. Emancipation overrides that presumption and allows emancipated children to legally make certain decisions on their own behalf.
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.
Child custody is a legal term regarding guardianship which is used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent or guardian and a child in that person's care. Child custody consists of legal custody, which is the right to make decisions about the child, and physical custody, which is the right and duty to house, provide and care for the child. Married parents normally have joint legal and physical custody of their children. Decisions about child custody typically arise in proceedings involving divorce, annulment, separation, adoption or parental death. In most jurisdictions child custody is determined in accordance with the best interests of the child standard.
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.
Tongan nationality law is regulated by the 1875 Constitution of Tonga, as amended; the Nationality Act, and its revisions; and international agreements entered into by the government of Tonga. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Tonga. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Tongan nationality is typically obtained either on the principle of jus soli, i.e. by birth in Tonga or under the rules of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth abroad to parents with Tongan nationality. It can be granted to persons who have lived in the country for a specific period of time, or who have an affiliation to the country through naturalisation.
The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted to amend, codify and secularize the law relating to intestate or unwilled succession, among Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs. The Act lays down a uniform and comprehensive system of inheritance and succession into one Act. The Hindu woman's limited estate is abolished by the Act. Any property possessed by a Hindu female is to be held by her absolute property and she is given full power to deal with it and dispose it of by will as she likes. Parts of this Act was amended in December 2004 by the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005.
Modern Hindu law is one of the personal law systems of India along with similar systems for Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, and Christians. This Hindu Personal Law or modern Hindu law is an extension of the Anglo-Hindu Law developed during the British colonial period in India, which is in turn related to the less well-defined tradition of Classical Hindu Law. The time frame of this period of Hindu law begins with the formal independence of India from Great Britain on August 14, 1947, and extends up until the present. While modern Hindu law is heralded for its inherent respect for religious doctrines, many still complain that discrimination still pervades the legal system, though efforts to modernize and increase the legal rights of the marginalized have been made.
The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (HAMA) was enacted in India in 1956 as part of the Hindu Code Bills. The other legislations enacted during this time include the Hindu Marriage Act (1955), the Hindu Succession Act (1956), and the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act (1956). All of these acts were put forth under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, and were meant to codify and standardise the current Hindu legal tradition. The Adoptions and Maintenance Act of 1956 dealt specifically with the legal process of adopting children by a Hindu adult, and with the legal obligations of a Hindu to provide "maintenance" to various family members including their wife or parents, and in-laws.
The Hindu code bills were several laws passed in the 1950s that aimed to codify and reform Hindu personal law in India, abolishing religious law in favor of a common law code. The Indian National Congress government led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru successfully implemented the reforms in 1950s. This process was started during the British rule of India.
The Adoption of Children Act 1949 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This legislation liberalised various rules concerning adoption. Placement of children for adoption came under the supervision of local authorities, while adopted children were given inheritance rights. In addition, the legislation also rejected the notion, implied in the Children Act of 1926, that the mother had to know the identity of the adopter if she could reasonably give consent to adoption. The Act instead allowed the identity of the adopter to be concealed behind a serial number. The act was repealed on 5 November 1993.
Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380 (1979), was a United States Supreme Court family law case which argued that a New York law, which allowed unwed mothers, but not unwed fathers, a veto over the adoption of that couple's children, was discriminatory.
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."
ABC v. The State is a case decided by a two-judge bench of the Supreme court of India, which held that an unwed woman belonging to the Christian faith can become a legal guardian of her child without the father's consent.
In 2003, Nigeria adopted the Child Rights Act to domesticate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Children's Rights Act of 2003 expands the human rights bestowed to citizens in Nigeria's 1999 constitution to children. Although this law was passed at the Federal level, it is only effective if State assemblies also codify the law. The bill was first introduced in 2002, but did not pass because of opposition from the Supreme Council for Shari'a. The act was officially passed into law in 2003 by Former President Chief Olusegun Obansanjo as the Children's Rights Act 2003, in large part because of the media pressure that national stakeholder and international organizations put on the National Assembly.
Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) is an autonomous and statutory body of Ministry of Women and Child Development in the Government of India. It was set up in 1990. It is a statutory body underJuvenile Justice Act, 2015. It functions as the nodal body for the adoption of Indian children and is mandated to monitor and regulate in-country and inter-country adoptions. CARA is designated as the Central Authority to deal with inter-country adoptions in accordance with the provisions of the 1993 Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption, ratified by Government of India in 2003.
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.
