§60.02 Background

• Jurisdiction: Washington

§ 60.02 BACKGROUND

Laws relating to adoption can be found as far back as 2000 B.C. A high mortality rate for children, coupled with the desire to perpetuate one's family name, provided the context in which adoption developed in ancient times as a social practice.

The Romans, in particular, developed the first known Western legal procedure for adoption, which allowed the adopted child to gain full legal status and recognition as if he or she were the birth child of the adoptive parents. The states in this country that were influenced by Roman law, e.g., Louisiana, had no difficulty in establishing and recognizing adoption laws. By contrast, those states with a common-law background were much slower to pass adoption laws. A reluctance to recognize the legality of adoption can be traced to the English insistence that only legitimate children, who were heirs by blood, could inherit or succeed to the family estate.

In those states with a common-law background, adoption statutes began to be...