248 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



whom he has had no more to do than with the choice 

 of the woman. And yet in the contemplation of law 

 the child is his and has no other father. Sonship is 

 here as obviously fictitious as in the case of adoption. 

 The widespread custom of adoption which dates from 

 savagery is another device testifying alike to the 

 intense desire for children and to the indifference for 

 the source from which as a matter of fact they come. 

 By means of a simple ceremony a child or a grown 

 person is transferred from his native kindred into the 

 family of the adopter and is thenceforth regarded for 

 all purposes as the offspring of his new parent. In 

 this way when the natural means of procuring children 

 fail, or for some other good reason, the relation of 

 parent and child is created between persons who are 

 known to have no natural kinship with one another, a 

 bond is formed as sacred and enduring as that which 

 among ourselves unites begetter and begotten or that 

 still closer bond between the mother and the fruit of 

 her womb. 



Thus fatherright, far from being founded on 

 certainty of paternity, positively fosters indifference, 

 and if it does not promote fraud at least becomes a 

 hotbed of legal fictions. It is a purely artificial 

 system. 



