Article VII. Adoption

By adoption a person becomes in law the child of another, though he is not such by nature. Legal adoption, according to Roman law, was a diriment impediment of marriage between certain parties, and in this matter the civil law was canonized by the law of the Church.

(a) It annulled marriage between the adopter and the adopted and those descendants of the latter who were under his authority at the time of the adoption.

(6) It annulled marriage between the adopted and the children of the adopter as long as they were under his authority.

(c) Finally, it annulled marriage between the adopter and the widow of the adopted, and between the adopted and the widow of the adopter.

Roman law, as such, is nowhere in force at present, and the Code has made new provisions for the circumstances. ,Canon 1059 prescribes that in those countries where by the civil law legal relationship arising from adoption makes marriage unlawful, marriage is also unlawful by canon law. Moreover, Canon 1080 prescribes that those who are held incapable of marrying each other by the civil law on account of legal relationship arising from adoption, cannot validly contract marriage and this by force of canon law.

In England the Adoption Act, 1926, sanctions adoption by order of the Court, but it does not seem to make it an impediment of marriage. In most of the States of the Union there seems to be a form of adoption recognized by law sufficient to make it the basis of the ecclesiastical impediment.¹

¹ Smith, Marriage Process, n. 263.