A different sort of gift is where the donor reserves to himself a use of the property as long as he lives, or stipulates for a life allowance from it. These are usually accompanied by formal adoption. The recipient is one who has not already a claim to inherit, but undertakes the care or maintenance of the donor. Such gifts are best classed under adoption, even where the fact of adoption is not stated. When a parent makes an arrangement of this kind with a son or daughter, these were possibly adopted by a previous act. At any rate, it seems likely that such a child was either unmarried or again free to wait upon the donor. But whatever the actual state of relationships, we find a mother giving property to a daughter, reserving the use of it as long as she lives.(557) Similarly a brother undertakes to give one shekel _per annum_ to his brother. Here the grounds of the undertaking are not stated, but a contract to do this is duly sealed and witnessed.(558) Further, maintenance is stipulated for, though the relationship is not stated, nor grounds given. This may not be based upon a gift, but follow the order of some judge, for other reasons.(559) (M538) The husband might settle upon his wife a fixed amount of property. This was frequently done and was called the _nudunnu_. It might include a house, two maids, clothes, jewelry, and household furniture.(560) Here the sons are expressly said to have no claim, she may give it to whoever serves her and “as her heart desires.” Probably she was a second wife without children, and is thus secured a life of comfort and the faithful service of her step-sons. As a rule these gifts are best considered under the head of marriage, but they were also free gifts on the donor’s part. The wife in any case had her right to inherit with her step-sons, if her husband made no such settlement. (M539) The consent of the legal heirs of the donor to such alienation of their reversionary rights was needed. Thus in one case, when a man gives his daughter a house, his son appears as the first witness.(561) A father and his son give their daughter and sister a house, which she is free to give to her son, “whom she loves.”(562) Had the house merely come to her as her share in the usual way, it must have been shared by her sons. If she had none, then her brother would be the next heir. That she can leave it as she will must be a matter of legal instrument. The brother must consent to the exception to the rule. (M540) In Assyrian times, donation is rarely represented within the group of documents which have reached us. Here is one case:(563) The household which Bêl-nâ’id gave to his daughter, Baltêa-abate. A house in Nineveh, before the great gate of the temple of Shamash. (Then come the servants, a _šaḳu_ or head man, a washerman, a _šaknu_, and others, male and female, in all eleven souls.) Dated the fourteenth of Adar, in the Eponymy of Marduk-shar-uṣur. Nine witnesses.