Book 5
19
The language of this request is as follows: Express your desire and ordain that Lucius Valerius be the son of Lucius Titius as justly and lawfully as if he had been born of that father and the mother of his family, and that Titius have that power of life and death over Valerius which a father has over a son. This, just as I have stated it, I thus ask of you, fellow Romans.
19
Neither a ward nor a woman who is not under the control of her father may be adopted by adrogatio; since women have no part in the comitia, and it is not right that guardians should have so much authority and power over their wards as to be able to subject to the control of another a free person who has been committed to their protection. Freedmen, however, may legally be adopted in that way by freeborn citizens, according to Masurius Sabinus. Fr. 27, Huschke; Jus. Civ. 60, Bremer. But he adds that it is not allowed, and he thinks it never ought to be allowed, that men of the condition of freedmen should by process of adoption usurp the privileges of the freeborn. Furthermore, says he, if that ancient law be maintained, even a slave may be surrendered by his master for adoption through the agency of a praetor. And he declares that several authorities Cato, Fr. 4a, I. p. 21, Bremer. on ancient law have written that this can be done.
