Resumen

VILLALTA, Carla. Entre la ilegitimidad y el abandono: la primera ley de adopción de niños. Cuad. Sur, Hist. [online]. 2003, n.32, pp. 27-48. ISSN 1668-7604.

This work analyzes debates held before the enactment of the first law to govern children's adoption in our country. Such law was presented as a real cure for "abandoned" and, thus, "deviated" children. The objective of this work is to describe how a problem was posed concerning the need for state intervention in practices such as assignment, delivery and placement of minors, which during the nineteenth and part of the twentieth century had been carried out by charity institutions. In this sense, I consider that debates prior to the creation of this legal item of adoption are to be framed, on the one hand, within the process of expropiation of functions traditionally granted to private institutions by the State. On the other hand, these debates must be set in a historical moment when, deriving from several arguments on the scope, regulation and the possibility of suppression of parental duties and rights, as well as on the legal status of those considered as "illegitimate children", new debates have arisen concerning the definition of "legitimate family" and its functions.

Palabras llave : Adoption; Childhood; State; Charity; Legitimate familiy.