* Divorce for sterility was customary in very early times.  Complete sterility or miscarriage was thought to be occasioned by evil spirits; a woman thus possessed with a devil came to be looked on as a dangerous being whom it was necessary to exorcise.

** Many of these children were those of courtesans or women who had been repudiated, as we learn from the Sumero- Assyrian tablet of Rawlinson:  “She will expose her child alone in the street, where the serpents in the road may bite it, and its father and mother will know it no more.”

People desiring to adopt a child usually made inquiries among their acquaintances, or poor friends, or cousins who might consent to give up one of their sons, in the hope of securing a better future for him.  When he happened to be a minor, the real father and mother, or, in the case of the death of one, the surviving parent, appeared before the scribe, and relinquished all their rights in favour of the adopting parents; the latter, in accepting this act of renunciation, promised henceforth to treat the child as if he were of their own flesh and blood, and often settled upon him, at the same time, a certain sum chargeable on their own patrimony.  When the adopted son was of age, his consent to the agreement was required, in addition to that of his parents.  The adoption was sometimes prompted by an interested motive, and not merely by the desire for posterity or its semblance.  Labour was expensive, slaves were scarce, and children, by working for their father, took the place of hired servants, and were content, like them, with food and clothing.  The adoption of adults was, therefore, most frequent in ancient times.  The introduction of a person into a fresh household severed the ties which bound him to the old one; he became a stranger to those who had borne him; he had no filial obligations to discharge to them, nor had he any right to whatever property they might possess, unless, indeed, any unforeseen circumstance prevented the carrying out of the agreement, and legally obliged him to return to the status of his birth.  In return, he undertook all the duties and enjoyed the privileges of his new position; he owed to his adopted parents the same amount of work, obedience, and respect that he would have given to his natural parents; he shared in their condition, whether for good or ill, and he inherited their possessions.  Provision was made for him in case of his repudiation by those who had adopted him, and they had to make him compensation:  he received the portion which would have accrued to him after their death, and he then left them.  Families appear to have been fairly united, in spite of the elasticity of the laws which governed them, and of the divers elements of which they were sometimes composed.  No doubt polygamy and frequently divorce exercised here as elsewhere a deleterious influence; the harems of Babylon were constantly the scenes of endless intrigues and quarrels