Dist. 42, Art. 2, Q. 3
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/42/q/bon-sent-IV-d42-a2-q3
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### Question III. *Whether legal kinship passes from one person to another.*

Thirdly it is asked whether legal kinship passes over into another. And that it does, seems [to be so]:

1. Cause thirty, question three, and it is had in the text: "Between those who are sons by nature and those who are sons by adoption, the venerable laws do not permit marriages to be contracted"; but this would not be so, unless the kinship passed from father to son: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, the union of flesh accords more with legal kinship than with spiritual; but the union of flesh makes spiritual kinship to be common: therefore much more strongly [does it make] legal kinship [common].

3. Likewise, carnal and spiritual kinship passes over: therefore by parity of reasoning legal kinship [does] also. Or if not, why not? And if it did not pass over, then there would be only a single species; but now three are assigned.

**On the contrary:** 1. Since spiritual kinship is communicable, it is therefore necessary that, if someone is made the spiritual father of another, he be made the co-father of that same person's father: therefore by parity of reasoning [so also] in adoption; which nevertheless is not conceded: therefore there is no passing-over of kinship.

2. Likewise, since in spiritual kinship there is a passing-over from father to natural daughter; therefore it is impossible that a spiritual son should ever contract [marriage] with a natural daughter: therefore by parity of reasoning a son by adoption could never contract [marriage] with a natural daughter; the contrary of which is stated in Cause thirty, question three: *Through adoption a brotherhood is acquired.*

Alongside this it is asked: since the bond of legal kinship passes over into sons and grandsons and into wives, why does it not pass over into parents, since they stand in the same nearness?

### Conclusion.

> **Conclusion.** The bond of legal kinship passes over into the wife simply, into the sons only for a time.

**I respond:** It must be said that the bond of adoption passes into another person in two ways, namely by *union of flesh* and by *generation*; but by union of flesh it passes over *forever*, whereas by generation [only] *for a time*.

And the reason for this is that such adoption regards temporal goods and paternal upbringing; and since husband and wife are joined *forever* and hold in common, undivided, all that they have; therefore a *perpetual bond to the wife* is contracted. But *natural sons* neither always live together nor always have undivided goods with their parents, indeed when they are emancipated, they leave the father; and hence it is that *that bond does not remain*. — And thus it is evident how that bond passes over, and when simply, and when for a time.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1 and 2.* As to that which is asked: why does legal kinship not pass over into the father? it must be said that spiritual kinship passes over into the father, because it regenerates the same one whom the father begot, so that spiritual kinship regards the interior good; therefore it is communicated in one, and thus the kinship of co-paternity is contracted. But *the adopter* takes the adopted one to something external, therefore it is not so communicated. — As to what is objected in the second place, it is already evident.

As to that which is asked: why does it not pass over in ascending? it must be said that the sap comes from the root to the branches, not the reverse; and since the sons are the branches of the father, therefore legal kinship is communicated from the father to the sons; it is not so fitting nor ought it to be communicated to the parents. — And thus the whole is evident.