CO129-467 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1921 [1-5] — Page 522

i

t

1

COPY.

Closure 2,

Enclosure

515

Hon, Colonial Secretary,

I attach marked A. a deed of adoption of a son.

This

is a translation of a deed which was produced in our courts some time ago and is a very perfect example of an adoption deed.

It is impossible to explain the whole law of adoption in a few

lines but the following notes may be of use. In China adoption is surrounded by rules which no one would think of breaking.

The most important are the following:

1. Adoption must follow nature. That is a man cannot adopt a

For

person he could not have been his own natural born son. example, a man of 30 could not adopt a person of 26, for this

would assume that the adopter had had a son when he was four

years old.

In other words you can only adopt a person who is

so much younger than you, that he could have been your natural

born son.

2. Adoption must not upset relationships. This is more difficult to explain. Adoption is nearly always made from

within the surname. A Chinese only adopts a person of a

different surname when there is no suitable person in his own

clan, whom he can adopt. But he must adopt some one who is in a suitable degree from a common ancestor. An example may make this clear. A man could not adopt his own first cousin. A man and his first cousin are both two degrees removed from the common grandfather. If an adoption of a first cousin were made, then a person who was by birth two degrees from the common grandfather would by adoption be placed in the third degree, and this would upset relationship. You will observe in the deed of adoption attached, that both the deceased to whom the adoption is made, and the father of the adopted boy, are in the 21st, degree from the common ancestor.

3. Adoption is a corporate act. A man by adopting a son to himself does not only adopt a son, but created a vast nexus of relationship between the person adopted, and all his living and

dead