“Spre folosul fericirii lor”. Copiii “de suflet” și practica adopției în spațiul românesc extracarpatic al primei jumătăți a secolului al XIX-lea
“Spre folosul fericirii lor [For the Use of Their Happiness]”. The Children “of Soul” and the Adoption Practices in the Romanian Area of the First half of the 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: Drawing mainly on the archives of the Institute of Poor Children, the first modern orphanage in the Principality of Wallachia, the aim of this paper is to identify the reasons, the institutional and bureaucratic mechanisms and also the cultural attitudes regarding the child adoption proceedings that took place between 1833 and 1837. Extrapolating these realities to a wider and in full transformation cultural context of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, the present study aims to analyse the extent to which both the discourses of the adoptive parents, of the midwives – who, in many instances, would become the main actors in the adoptive practice – and the institutional rhetorics of the Church, local authorities and plitical decision-makers were circumscribed to a general phenomenon of a modern reevaluation of the attitudes towards children. Therefore, the paper questions if the child remains traditionally and pragmatically portrayed based on his/her quality as a heir, an actor of the family economy or a simple beneficiary of an act of Christian charity – namely adoption – or, in accordance to the modern sensitivity, the childhood begins to be invested with emotional features and the child begins to ba valued for his affective potential.

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