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his ancestor—existed the head of a house should not permit a person of more distant relationship to become the successor to the sacra. This rule took another form during the Shogunate of the Tokugawa family. In order to prevent the extinction of a house by the sudden death of a house-head who had no son, any man over the age of seventeen years was allowed to adopt a son. A person between the age of seventeen and fifty years could even adopt a son on his death-bed, and this event was called ‘Kiu-yoshi,’ or ‘quick adoption.’ But if he failed in his duty of providing for the continuity of his house until after he had attained the age of fifty, he was threatened with the dire, dreadful consequences of the extinction of his house in the event of his dying without male issue, for ‘quick adoption’ was not permissible after that age. The prohibition of death-bed adoption is not in force to-day, and has not, therefore, been incorporated in the new Code. On the contrary, Article 848 allows a person to make an adoption even by testament. The old and the new law seem on this point to contradict each other, but the spirit of both is the same. They both had the perpetuation of house for their object, and the difference between them consists in this: that the one wished to make people provide for the succession early in life by attaching severe penalties to the neglect of that precaution, while the other desired to avoid the chance of a house-worship becoming extinct by freely countenancing adoption.

With regard to the lowest limit of the age of the adopter, both the laws of the Tokugawa Shogunate and our new Civil Code agree in giving the widest scope to adoption. The Taiho Code fixes the limit at sixty, but the laws of the Tokugawa Shogunate allowed and encouraged any childless person over the age of seventeen, and even, by special permission, heads of houses under that age, to adopt a successor; and Article 837 of the new Civil Code allows any person who has obtained his majority to adopt another person. As to the difference. of ages which must exist between the adopter and the adopted, the Taiho Code required that the adopter and the adopted should be ‘fit to be father and son.’ In the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate the adopter was only required to be older than the adopted; but frequent deviations were made to this rule by special permission—notably, a decree allowing a house-head under seventeen years of age to arrange an adoption, and another by which even an older person might be adopted as a son. Article 838 of the new Civil Code provides that a person cannot adopt one older than himself, although he may adopt any person who is younger than himself.

As to the age of the adopted, no limit has been fixed in our law. Article 843 of the new Civil Code runs as follows: ‘If