402 COMPARATIVE LAW 



false clan-names would suffer injury, while the innocent would 

 escape unhurt. Afterward, in the year 815 A.D., a "Register of 

 Clan-names" or " Seishi-roku " was compiled, a part of which is 

 still in existence to-day. This register consisted of 30 volumes and 

 contained 1182 clan-names. 



The introduction of the house-register or "ko-seki" dates back 

 as far as the first year of the Taika Era. But it owes its origin to the 

 adoption of Chinese institutions, and although its introduction was 

 earlier in date than the final compilation of the register of clan- 

 names, its historical order must come after that of the clan-registry, 

 for the system of house-registry has continued from that remote 

 period down to the present time. 



It was only in the year of the publication of the new Civil Code 

 (1898) that our law of registration began to enter upon the third 

 stage of its development. The present law, which was promulgated 

 at the same time as the Civil Code, and which replaced the previous 

 law of 1871, still retains the name of "Ko-seki Ho" or the "Law of 

 House-registration"; but the character of the law has undergone 

 a change, necessitated by the progress of the social condition of the 

 country, for it provides for the registration of individual status or 

 "mibuu-toki" as well as of house-registration. 



It is sometimes asserted that the family was the original unit of 

 the state, and that an aggregation of families formed a clan. But 

 this view seems to reverse the real order of development. The clan grew 

 out of the expansion of a family, and separate households grew up 

 within the clan by the increase of clansmen. It was their common 

 worship and common clan-name which united them to a group. So 

 it was the clan which was first recognized by the state and formed 

 its unit. The family or house was included in the clan and did not 

 yet possess separate existence in the eyes of the law. It was only 

 by the gradual disintegration of the clan and the growth of the central 

 powsr of the state that the family or house came to the fore, and began to 

 form the unit of the state. Thus the constituent elements of each society 

 become smaller and smaller, until they divide themselves into atoms 

 or individuals. 



XV. Adoption 



The importance of the fiction of adoption to primitive society 

 has been illustrated by Sir Henry Maine in many places. In one 

 passage he says, "Without the fiction of adoption which permits 

 the family tie to be artificially created, it is difficult to understand 

 how society would ever have escaped from its swaddling-clothes, 

 and taken its first step toward civilization. " (Ancient Law, ch. ii.) 

 Its importance in India and also at Rome and Athens is well known 

 among students of historical and comparative jurisprudence. But 



