There is sometimes a difficulty in ascertaining whether or no an adoption has actually taken place. There must be a final giving and receiving of the child in adoption, and for Sudras nothing more is required. For the twice-born classes it is not finally settled whether any religious ceremony is actually necessary in order to render the adoption valid. But some religious ceremony in almost all cases accompanies the adoption, so that the absence of any such ceremony will always raise a suspicion that the adoption, though it may have been contemplated and some steps taken towards it, had not been finally completed. If an adoption were in itself invalid, no acquiescence and no lapse of time could make it valid--just as an invalid marriage could not be similarly validated. But acquiescence by the family would be strong evidence of the validity of an adoption, and the rules of limitation by barring any suit in which the question could be raised might render the adoption practically unassailable. The kritrima adoption is altogether different; although the adopted son performs the ceremonies for his adopting father's family, and has a right to succeed, he is nevertheless not cut off from his own family. A person of any age may be adopted, and he must be old enough to be able to consent to the adoption, as without this consent it cannot take place. In this form a female can adopt, and no ceremonies are required. AUTHORITIES.--HINDU LAW: J. D. Mayne, _Hindu Law_ (London, 1892); Colebrooke's _Treatises on the Hindu Law of Inheritance_ (Calcutta, 1810); Stokes's _Hindu Law Books_ (Madras, 1865); West and Buhler, _A Digest of the Hindu Law of Inheritance_ (Bombay, 1878); Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya, _A Commentary on Hindu Law_ (Calcutta, 1894); Rajkumar Sarvadhikari, _Principles of the Hindu Law of Inheritance_ (Calcutta, 1882); Gooroodass Banerjee, _The Hindu Law of Marriage and Stridhana_ (Calcutta, 1896); Jogendra Chundar, _Principles of Hindu Law_ (Calcutta, 1906).