[63]
Further, it is surely
not just that an adopted son should bring other sons into a family by adoption;
he may leave in it children born to him, but in default of these he must restore
the inheritance to those related by blood. That is what the laws
ordain.For is it not plain that each one of
you is excluded from the right of inheritance by direct descent, if this licence
be granted to children by adoption? For you see that most people who adopt
children do so through being cajoled by flattery and often in a spirit of
contentiousness caused by family quarrels. But if an adopted son is to be
permitted in defiance of the law to adopt whomsoever he pleases, inheritances
will never be given to blood-relations.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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