Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.714

c7.714

§ 21. Sonship and adoption. The twelve kinds of sonship⁴, which to some extent are based on the illicit connections of the mother and for the greater part have nothing to do with the blood-relationship of the son with the father, are probably the most striking feature of Indian family-law. The cause of this abnormal importance being attached to male issue is to be sought, according to the Smṛtis, in the offering of sacrifices to the manes which depends¹ upon the male issue; yet however originally an economic motive was perhaps a more important factor in it—to get for the family as many powerful workers as possible. The children belong to the husband—the owner of the wife—even though he is not their father (M. 9, 48—56), and over and above this through adoption he can take into his patria potestas other children out of that of another person. Yet even from the very beginning in the Smṛtis and in the Purāṇas such secondary sons (*putrasthānīya, gauṇaputra*) have been regarded as not equal with the legitimate sons (*aurasa*) and therefore a heirarchy of at least 12 sons has been made among whom each preceding member gets the preference over the succeeding ones in inheritance. The Aurasa is always at the top of the list while the order and nomenclature of the others vary according to particular individual opinions and school traditions. A list of 12 sons differing a good deal from the ordinary list is found in Mah. 1, 120, 32 ff., an enumeration of 5 sons in Mah. 1, 74, 99 and another of 3 sons is found in Buddhistic works.