Forms by which children born outside a family unit are taken into the family have existed since time immemorial in Ethiopia. These forms have varied depending upon the ethnic, religious and regional groupings involved. The relationships created range from rather loose affirmations of close friendship and mutual interest to complete assimilation of the outsider as if he had been born within the family. This article will be concerned only with the later type of customary assimilation, which we will term “adoption”.
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