Fosterage

Fosterage, the relation which arises when children are nursed and brought up by others than their own parents, may anywhere establish a very close bond between foster-parents and foster-children. But in ancient Ireland, under the Brehon Laws (q.v.), the systematic fosterage of the children of the wealthy in poor families, and their education there from infancy till the age of thirteen in the case of daughters and seventeen in the case of sons, was recognised and organised in the most elaborate manner, the respective duties and privileges being carefully specified and guarded. Thus, the foster-parents were entitled not merely to the fosterage fee, but to support in their old age from the foster-child; the foster-father was liable to mulcts incurred by the foster-child; and, if the foster-child was found to have been improperly or imperfectly educated in any of the specified branches, the foster-father had to refund the fees in due proportion.