i am my father's son - or yours?

From: Steve Lieb <styopa_at_iname.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 11:14:00 -0600


>Steve Lieb:
>>>But that defeats the whole point of adoption, to recognize X as being
>>>the offspring of Y for _all_ intents and purposes. X would have been
>>>made acceptable to the ancestors as part of the adoption ritual. Thus
>>>he would be treated no better or worse than a normal offspring.
>>Who says it's for "all intents and purposes"?
>The very meaning of adoption is to establish new _kinship_ ties. If
>the ancestors don't recognize him as kin then why should the people
>who adopted him be required to do so?

True, but are all kinship ties equal? Is one required to defend one's second-cousin's honor as much as one's sister's?

>Nero. Adopted son of Claudius. Was made equal heir to his natural
>son Britannicus. Worshipped Claudius when the later was deified.
good example!

>>>>Neither can adopted members (usually) hold clan official seats.
>>>I don't think this is true. Wives (or husbands for matrilineal clans)
>>>get accepted into the clan with all rights and responsibilities, so
>>>why not adoptees? If they didn't trust him, they wouldn't have adopted
>>>him in the first place.
>>I don't think this is so odd - you can become a naturalized citizen of the
>>USA, but you still can't be president. Your descendant could.
>And most of the world are not americans. The NZ deputy PM was born in
>California and still retains american citizenship. There is no
>constitutional bar to him becoming PM.

I think (it's a complete guess) that *most* of the world's societies have barriers to non native-born individuals holding high offices. USA (and NZ) are probably not the best examples, being systems that were, in effect "crafted" versus those of older "inherited" governments. Anyway, I think we've served to show there's justification for either way, meaning that there are probably some tribes that do it one way, some another.

>>the rules for subordinate spouses (in terms of lineage) are special - I
>>can't think offhand of a situation (in RW cultures) where such an
>>individual would be a candidate for leading offices anyway.
>
>Catherine the Great, Czarina of Russia. Was a german princess but usurped
>power after the death of her husband.
>

Wasn't she his cousin, however? At the most she was a second-cousin.

End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #379

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