Latin
Lines 1.131-1.143
Roman Law and Society, The Institutes of Justinian 1.131-143
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4. A younger person cannot adopt an older; for adoption imitates nature; and it seems unnatural that a son should be older than his father. Anyone, therefore, who wishes either to adopt or arrogate a son should be the elder by the term of complete puberty, that is, by eighteen years.
5. A person may adopt another as grandson or granddaughter, great-grandson or great-granddaughter, or any other descendant, although he has no son.
6. A man may adopt the son of another as his grandson, and the grandson of another as his son.
7. If a man adopts a grandson to be the son of a man already adopted, or of a natural son in his power, the consent of this son ought first to be obtained, that he may not have a suus heres given him against his will. But, on the contrary, if a grandfather gives his grandson by a son in adoption, the consent of the son is not necessary.
8. He who is either adopted or arrogated is assimilated, in many points, to a son born in lawful matrimony; and therefore, if any one adopts a person who is not a stranger by imperial rescript, or before the praetor, or the praeses of a province, he can afterwards give in adoption to another the person whom he has adopted.
9. It is a rule common to both kinds of adoption, that persons, although incapable of procreating, as, for instance, impotent persons, may, but those who are castrated cannot adopt.
10. Women, also, cannot adopt; for they have not even their own children in their power; but, by the indulgence of the emperor, as a comfort for the loss of their own children, they are allowed to adopt.