Besides possessing the power of making a will, the head of the family was able to increase it by adoption. The practice of adoption was of long standing in Babylonia. The right to become King of Babylon and so to claim legitimate rule over the civilized world was conferred through adoption by the god Bel-Merodach. The claimant to sovereignty “took the hand of Bel,” as it was termed, and thereby became the adopted son of the god. Until this ceremony was performed, however much he might be a sovereign _de facto_, he was not so _de jure_. The legal title to rule could be given by Bel, and by Bel alone. As the Pharaohs of Egypt were sons of Ra the Sun-god, so it was necessary that the kings of Babylon should be the sons of the Babylonian Sun-god Merodach. Sonship alone made them legitimate. This theory of adoption by a god must have been derived from a practice that was already well known. And the power of adopting children was exercised by the Babylonians up to the last. It has been suggested that it was due to ancestor-worship, and the desire to prevent the customary offerings from being discontinued through the extinction of the family. But for this there is no evidence. Indeed, it is questionable whether there was any worship of ancestors in Babylonia except in the case of the royal family. And even here it had its origin in the deification of the kings during their lifetime. The prevalence of adoption in Babylonia had a much less recondite cause. It was one of the results of the recognition of private property and the principle of individual ownership. The head of the family naturally did not wish his estate to pass out of it and be transferred to a stranger. Wherever monogamy is the general rule, the feeling of family relationship is strong, and such was the case among the Babylonians. The feeling shows itself in the fact that when inherited land is sold we find other members of the family signing their assent by their presence at the sale. The father or mother, accordingly, who adopted a child did so with the intention of making him their heir, and so keeping the estate they had inherited or acquired in the hands of their own kin. That this is the true explanation of the Babylonian practice of adoption is clear from the case mentioned above in which Bel-Katsir was prevented from adopting his step-son, because his uncle and adoptive father, whose property would then have passed to the latter, objected to his doing so. It was entirely a question of inheritance. Bel-Katsir had been adopted in order that he might be his uncle’s heir, and consequently the uncle had the right of deciding to whom his estate should ultimately go. He preferred that it should be the brother of Bel-Katsir, and the brother accordingly it was settled to be.