A trifling predilection for the real thing in sonships is absolutely vital, even to the continuance of the artificial variety.

For if one generation ever went in exclusively for adoption, there would be no subsequent generation to adopt.
As it to give the finishing touch to so conventional a system of society, a man can leave it under certain circumstances with even greater ease than he entered it.

He can become as good as dead without the necessity of making way with himself.

Theoretically, he can cease to live while still practically existing; for it is always open to the head of a family to abdicate.
The word abdicate has to our ears a certain regal sound.

We instinctively associate the act with a king.